Brian Boyd Wins Rutherford Medal, New Zealand’s Top Research Honor

A literary expert once hailed as an “academic superstar” by the New York Times has become the first humanities scholar to receive New Zealand’s highest research honor.

In winning the Rutherford Medal, presented by the Royal Society Te Apārangi at Government House tonight, distinguished professor Brian Boyd defended that the humanities are part of the sciences, and vice versa.

For three decades, the prestigious medal awarded annually has honored New Zealand’s eminent scientists: including Professors Sir Peter Gluckman, Sir Alan MacDiarmid, Sir Paul Callaghan and Dame Margaret Brimble.

In 2013, renowned anthropologist Dame Anne Salmond became the first social scientist to win the Rutherford, but it wasn’t until this year that the medal’s scope was broadened to recognize fields in the humanities, such as the arts.

Boyd argued, “Actually, I think science is humanities … and humanities are science.”

No science happened without language, culture and traditions, he said, while humanities subjects involved testing hypotheses against evidence and challenging “received knowledge.”

In his own work, Boyd is considered the world’s leading scholar on Russian-American author Vladimir Nabokov, who wrote the 1955 classic Lolita, was interested in how we as humans could extend our limits.

“As a humanist, you can choose to explore what humans have done wrong and continue to do it wrong, and examples are not lacking,” said the University of Auckland academic.

“But I prefer to show how some humans have expanded the possibilities for all of us, in art or in thought. If we are not inspired by what humans at their best can do, we might despair of what humans at their worst can. do.

“I especially like working with people who go beyond the limits of the arts, humanities and sciences.”

Boyd has been praised for his exceptional contribution to literary studies, the humanities, and the social and natural sciences, both as a detailed specialist and for developing new and influential perspectives with influence far beyond literature.

His research has changed the way Nabokov’s ideas and techniques are understood, and his two-volume critical life of Nabokov was called “a masterpiece” and “the greatest literary biography ever written”, garnering awards around the world.

His 2009 book On the Origin of Stories has also been hailed as “the most important reorientation” of literary studies since Northrop Frye’s 1957 Anatomy of Criticism.

He argued that storytelling has given humans an evolutionary advantage and has provided a new framework for studying the arts informed by evolutionary theory.

“He has made a compelling case that storytelling and art creation have given humans an evolutionary advantage, and he advocates that scientific theories and methods apply to the arts,” said society president Professor Wendy Larner , about Boyd.

“In fact, it makes a compelling case for why the humanities are sciences and the sciences are humanities.”

Other honorees by the society tonight include Dr. Cherryl Waerea-i-te-rangi Smith, who received the Health Research Council (HRC) Te Tohu Rapuora Award for her work on Maori-focused health projects.

She was a co-founder of New Zealand’s first independent and community-based research institute focused on environmental and health research to address the needs of Maori, and has since led other influential efforts.

The HRC Liley Medal was jointly awarded to Professor Mark Weatherall from the University of Otago and Mark Holliday from the New Zealand Institute of Medical Research.

They are both senior researchers in a New Zealand-led study that found that patients with mild asthma were much less likely to have a severe asthma attack if they used inhalers that combined preventative and reliever medications.

The Royal Society Te Apārangi Te Puāwaitanga Award for Eminent and Distinctive Contribution to Maori Te ao and Indigenous Knowledge was presented to Victoria University Associate Professor Maria Bargh.

His work, focused on political economy and the environment, was helping to reshape the way New Zealand responded to environmental issues with respect to Maori.

Another researcher from the University of Victoria, Professor Rawinia Higgins, received the Pou Aronui Award for helping to revitalize the Maori language.

The inaugural winner of the Tahunui-a-Rangi Award for Invention and Creation was Professor David Tipene-Leach, of the Eastern Institute of Technology, for the wahakura, a linen sleeping device designed to decrease sudden infant death while supporting the use shared bed.

The Thomson Medal went to Dr. John Caradus, CEO of Grasslanz Technology, whose career has focused on enhancing the value of grasslands for kiwi farmers.

And the Hamilton Award, which recognizes early career researchers, went to Dr. Nick Albert of Plant and Food Research.

Albert, a plant geneticist, has made important contributions to understanding the compounds responsible for different colors in plants, their origins, and how they are controlled.