Oakley Center For Humanities & Social Sciences Announces 2009-10 Fellowship09:19AM / Wednesday, September 09, 2009
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. - Eleven faculty and two students received fellowships for research during the academic year 2009-10 at Williams College's Oakley Center for the Humanities and Social Sciences.
Established in 1985 to provide significant support for faculty research and development, the Oakley Center facilitates intellectual exchange and collaboration among faculty members and student fellows whose research and teaching cross or elude disciplinary boundaries.
The Center provides working space and research support for resident fellows. Fellowship selection is made by a faculty committee on the basis of research proposals submitted each spring for the following year. Michael F. Brown, the James N. Lambert '39 Professor of Anthropology and Latin American Studies, is director.
Full-Year Fellows
Theo Davis, associate professor of English, will work on "Thoreau, Dickinson, and the Aesthetics of Ornament." Teaching courses on 19th century American literature and contemporary literary theory, Davis published the book "Formalism, Experience and the Making of American Literature in the Nineteenth Century" in 2007. She received her B.A. from Brown University in 1994 and her Ph.D. in English and American literature from John Hopkins University in 2002.
Suzanne L. Graver, emerita faculty fellow and visiting professor of English, will continue her work at the Oakley Center with "Thinking Woman: A Victorian Debate with Current Counterparts, Part III." Working from British periodicals and books from the 1830s-1890s, her project examines a fierce debate that altered prevailing conceptions of women's intellect and female agency. A professor at Williams from 1978 to 2002, Graver received her B.A. from Queens College, CUNY, her M.A. from the University of California at Berkeley, and her Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Mary L. Roberts, associate professor of British art at the University of Sydney, Australia, is the Clark-Oakley Humanities Fellow and will be pursuing her work on "Artistic Exchanges in Nineteenth-century Istanbul." Roberts' research interests include European and British art of the 19th century, gender, Orientalism, and the development of Ottoman art in the 19th century. She received her B.A. from Sydney and her Ph.D. from Melbourne.
Amanda R. Wilcox, assistant professor of classics, is the Herbert H. Lehman Fellow and will be working on her project "Representing Virtue: Exemplary Discourse in Seneca's Dialogues." Her research interests include Latin literature of the late republic and early empire, Roman cultural history with an emphasis on gender studies and intellectual history, ancient philosophy and Greek literature. She has been published in the American Journal of Philology, Helios and Phoenix. Wilcox received her B.A. in classics from Reed College in 1996 and her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 2002.
Fall 2009 Fellows
Ruth M. Ezra '10 is the Ruchman Student Fellow for the fall. An art major from Ithaca, N.Y., she will work on the project "Van Dyck, Sargent, and the British Portrait Tradition." Ezra studied in the Williams-Exeter Programme at Oxford last year and is a tutor for the Writing Workshop.
Guy M. Hedreen, professor of art, will pursue his research on "Athenian Dionysiac Vase-Painting and Ancient Greek Narratives of Human Social Evolution." He has published the books "Capturing Troy: The Narrative Functions of Landscape in Archaic and Early Classical Greek Art" and "Silens in Attic Black-figure Vase-painting: Myth and Performance," which won him the Gustave O. Art Award in the Humanities from the Council of Graduate Schools. He is also the recipient of the Rome Prize Competition and a National Endowment for the Humanities Postdoctoral Fellowship. Hedreen received his B.A. from Pomona College in 1981. He received his M.A. in 1983 and his Ph.D. in 1988 in classical and Near Eastern archaeology, both from Bryn Mawr College.
Elizabeth P. McGowan, professor of art, will work on "Memorial Strategies and the Ancient Tomb: The Funerary Monument in Ancient Greece and Rome." A specialist in Greek art, particularly the sculpture and architecture of the archaic and classical periods, she has published articles on funerary practice and on the orders of architecture in the American Journal of Archaeology and Hesperia. She was a member of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens in 1982-86 and received the Olivia James Traveling Fellowship from the Archaeological Institute of America for research in Greece in 1988-89. She received her B.A. from Princeton University in 1979 and her Ph.D. from New York University's Institute of Fine Arts in 1993.
Kenda B. Mutongi, professor of history and Africana studies, will pursue work on her book, "'Coming for to Carry Me Home': Commuters and Transport Culture in Nairobi, 1960-Present."
At Williams since 1996, Mutongi's research focuses on East Africa, urban history, and transport history and culture, and her book "Worries of the Heart: Widows, Family, and Community in Kenya" received an honorable mention in the 2008 Melville J. Herskovits Award competition from the African Studies Association. She has been a member at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. Mutongi received her B.A. from Coe College in 1989 and her Ph.D. in history from the University of Virginia in 1996.
Spring 2010 Fellows
William C. Dudley, professor of philosophy, is the Center's Herbert H. Lehman Fellow and will pursue his work on "Big Games: The Spiritual Significance of Sports." A specialist in 19th- and 20th-century continental philosophy as well as Kant and Hegel, Dudley is the author of "Understanding German Idealism" and "Hegel, Nietzsche, and Philosophy: Thinking Freedom." (2002). Dudley received his B.A. from Williams in 1989 and his Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1998.
Cornelius C. Kubler, professor of Asian studies, will work on the project, "A Synchronic and Diachronic Study of the Southern Min Dialects of Penghu." He has authored numerous books and articles on his specialization, Chinese language pedagogy and linguistics, including "NFLC Guide for Basic Chinese Language Programs" and "Chinese as a Foreign/Second Language in the Study Abroad Context." At Williams since 1991, Kubler received his M.A. in linguistics from Cornell University in 1975, an M.A. in Chinese literature from National Taiwan University in 1978, and his Ph.D. in linguistics from Cornell University in 1981.
Jose Ciro Martinez '10 is the Ruchman Student Fellow for the spring. A political science and history major from San Juan, Puerto Rico, he will work on the project "'They Cannot Represent Themselves, They Must be Represented': Nationalism, Class and Democracy in Lebanon and Iraq, 1989-2009." Martinez is on the board of the political science department's Student Liaison Committee, the College Lecture Committee, and is currently the commissioner of the Williams Water Polo team.
Isabel Roche, professor of French at Bennington College, will pursue her work on "The Literary Animal in 19th-Century France." Previously a visiting assistant professor of French at the college, she is a specialist in the 19th-century French novel and published the book "Character and Meaning in the Novels of Victor Hugo" in 2006. Roche received her B.A. from Bates College in 1992 and her Ph.D. in French from New York University in 1996.
James R. Shepard, professor of English, will work on his project, "Collection of Short Fiction." His 2007 collection of short stories "Like You'd Understand, Anyway," won the Story Prize and was nominated for a National Book Award . A recipient of the 2006 Pushcart Prize, he is also the author of the books "Project X," "Love and Hydrogen," "Nosferatu," "Batting Against Castro," "Kiss of the Wolf," "Paper Doll" and "Flights," all of which have been chosen by the New York Times as Notable Books of the Year. Shepard received his B.A. from Trinity College in 1978 and his M.F.A. from Brown University in 1980. |
