Division of the Humanities Deputy Dean and Associate Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature Eric Slauter discusses the history of solitude in America in a recent BackStory podcast. He contends yearning for solitude is integral to American culture and provides examples from Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and James Madison.
Through his interdisciplinary approach to analyzing the work of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, David E. Wellbery has transformed scholarly understanding of a pivotal cultural period in Europe surrounding the dawn of the 19th century. In recognition of his groundbreaking research, Wellbery will receive the Golden Goethe Medal from the Goethe Society on June 13, 2019, at the National Theater in Weimar, Germany. “During the last decades David Wellbery’s scholarship has transformed our understanding of Goethe’s work in fundamental ways,” said Daniel Diermeier, Provost at the University of Chicago. “The Golden Goethe Medal is a wonderful recognition of his seminal contribution.”
Well-regarded sculptor and scholar of urban planning, Theaster Gates, professor in Visual Arts at UChicago, excels at discovering art in ordinary objects. His enthusiasm and skill at creating unusual exhibitions drew high-visibility celebrities such as Kanye West, Emma Roberts, and Venus Williams to his Art Basel exhibition “The Black Image Corporation” a Prada-sponsored art installation in Miami this month. Gates is “that rare artist who seems to fill the space between art and ordinary life,” said Miuccia Prada, a fashion icon.
Scholars in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations have discovered and excavated new archaeological sites and uncovered new perspectives about history in the Middle East that brought new understanding about the civilizations, daily life, and religious and scientific practices of the region. In recognition of their significant contributions to the field, the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) and Middle East Medievalists (MEM) recently honored NELC faculty members Donald Whitcomb and Orit Bashkin, as well as NELC alumnus Ahmet Tunç Şen, MA’10, PhD’16. Whitcomb received the MEM Lifetime Achievement Award for his pivotal fieldwork in historic Islamic archaeology. As the co-winner of MESA’s 2018 Nikki Keddie Book Award for her book Impossible Exodus: Iraqi Jews in Israel (Stanford University Press, 2017), Bashkin explores the difficult transition for Iraqi Jews who migrated to Israel in the 1950s, especially of the women and children. For his 2016 dissertation on “Astrology in the Service of the Empire: Knowledge, Prognostication, and Politics at the Ottoman Court, 1450s–1550s,” Şen received MEM’s Inaugural Dissertation Award.