The Straker Prize is an award offered to two Arts One students every year in honour of Dr. Stephen Straker (1942-2004), a former member of the UBC Department of History and a strong supporter of the Arts One program. The students selected for the Straker Prize demonstrate high academic standing, and also exhibit promise and distinction in their contributions to their respective seminars, the Arts One program as a whole, and the wider community.
We are excited to announce that Annabel Smith and Kimberly Pugh are the Straker Prize winners for the 2023-24 academic year!
Annabel Smith is a second-year student in the Honours in English Literature program. She comes from a small beach town in Massachusetts, and in her free time she loves to write, swim, and spend too much money on coffee.
In 10 words or less, what was your first year experience like?
Beach sunsets, big books, movie nights, no sleep.
Looking back, what did you enjoy the most about the Arts One program? What did you find the most challenging?
The sheer amount of material that we covered was both my favorite and least favorite aspect of the course. Arts One can be a pretty daunting program, with a new, usually difficult text to read every week and six papers each term. It could be challenging to balance my time spent reading books and writing essays for Arts One with the rest of my first year classes, and getting acclimated to university life in general, but Arts One provided such a wide base of knowledge about literature, philosophy, and history that was ultimately so worth the work. Once I got used to the structure of the course, I found that reading these books and struggling with the ideas with my classmates was something that really interested and excited me.
What was your favourite lecture in Arts One?
I really enjoyed Gavin Paul’s lectures on Shakespeare’s Hamlet. As well as being a beautiful and deeply complex text to grapple with, Hamlet is probably one of the most culturally significant texts we studied in a program chock-full of complex and culturally significant texts. With Hamlet being a stage play, we got to spend lecture time watching scenes from various stagings that made the text come alive in a very special way. Having two weeks of lectures instead of just one allowed us to dive deeply into the intricacies of the play, and Dr. Paul’s lecture made me feel very connected to the material in a very personal way that I had not found just from reading it as a text.
If you could interview an author whose work you read in Arts One, who would that author be and why?
I would be interested in having a conversation with Mary Shelley. Frankenstein is quite possibly my favorite text we studied in Arts One, and I absolutely adore Shelley’s style of prose and gift at constructing narrative. I’d love to see her thoughts on the way that Frankenstein has been represented (and misrepresented) in pop culture. Besides, I’d just really like to pick her brain – she’s such a cool, badass woman and I bet we’d get along great.
What are your plans for second year and/or beyond? Did being in the program have any influence on your path?
I’m currently starting my first year of the Honours program in English Literature. I’ve known for a long time that I wanted to study literature at university, but my experience in the Arts One program left me feeling equipped to take the extra step of applying to the honours program. I also decided after finishing the program to add a minor in philosophy to my degree.
“Grappling with the works of thinkers like Plato, Rousseau, Nietzsche, and Fanon was one of the most challenging and compelling parts of the course, and opened up a new world for me that I had never considered pursuing before Arts One.”
During Kimberly Pugh’s time in Arts One, she was a student in Robert Crawford’s seminar. If she’s not writing, chances are she’s playing a stringed instrument or looking at flowers.
In 10 words or less, what was your first year experience like?
An absolute whirlwind of new experiences and people. Incredibly caffeinated.
Looking back, what did you enjoy the most about the Arts One program? What did you find the most challenging?
I loved the exposure to such a vast range of literature, as well as having the opportunity to engage with the texts so thoroughly. What with seminars and tutorials, getting to be in that interactive environment was a great experience. Just hearing other people’s thoughts on whatever we were reading enhanced my own engagement with the text and encouraged me to stay open to alternative perspectives. I found that in itself to be rather challenging but only in the best way. The intimate group setting definitely pushed me beyond my previous comfort zone. You just have to embrace open discussion. To have such honest conversations with your prof and peers, whether that’s surrounding your essays or the texts, ultimately makes Arts One a fantastic place to grow as a writer.
What’s a valuable connection you’ve made because of Arts One? (Connection could be social, or it could be an academic connection)
I had the opportunity to meet so many wonderful people during my time in Arts One and that’s something I remain incredibly thankful for. However, now going into second year, I am more grateful than ever for the friendships that I formed within the program.
“I’m so glad I signed up for it, if only to meet some amazing people who made first year so memorable. You really bond over the course of the year, especially since you share a lot of the same academic stresses. Here’s to all the ridiculously late nights and silly drawings.”
What are your top 3 favourite texts from Arts One and why?
Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative was particularly intriguing to pick apart. The way identity functions and shifts for Equiano throughout the account was fascinating. I found Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj compelling for similar reasons, given how the text challenges and redefines concepts of national identity. And while it didn’t register much with me initially, I came to find Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality quite interesting as well. His discussion bridging passion, reason, and corruption definitely lingered in the back of my mind as I read later works.
What are your plans for second year and/or beyond? Did being in the program have any influence on your path?
Just lots of writing, reading, and music, in what order, I’m not sure. The current plan is to dabble with sociology and creative writing and see where things go, though I would not say that anything is currently set in stone for me. While I enjoyed my time in Arts One, it did solidify the fact that I am not one for studies in English lit. However it has also sparked an interest in philosophy that I hope to keep tending to.
