UChicago Humanities Professor To Be Honored as Commandeur by the French Government
By Sara Patterson
For his exceptional contribution to teaching and promoting French thought and culture, Arnold I. Davidson has received the rank of Commandeur in the Ordre des Palmes académiques and will be honored at the French Consulate in Chicago in the fall of 2021. This achievement is the highest-ranking academic honor of the French Republic and is available to both French and international academics who make major contributions to French national education and culture.
“Throughout his career, Arnold has thoroughly immersed himself in French culture and thought without regard to disciplinary boundaries,” said Anne Walters Robertson, Dean of the Division of the Humanities.
Eight UChicago Faculty Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Eight members of the University of Chicago faculty have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies. They include Profs. Zeresenay Alemseged, Benson Farb, Jeffrey Hubbell, Karin Knorr Cetina, Anup Malani, Angela Olinto, Eric Santner and Amie Wilkinson.
These scholars have made breakthroughs in fields ranging from human evolution and cancer immunotherapy to cosmic rays and geometric group theory. They join the 2021 class of more than 250 individuals, announced April 22, which includes artists, scholars, scientists, and leaders in the public, nonprofit and private sectors.
Media Mentions April 2021
The latest media mentions, quotes, profiles, and writings from Division of the Humanities faculty, students, staff, and alumni. Visit us on Twitter and Facebook for more updates.
Meet the Staff: Katie Kahal
In this month's edition of "Meet the Staff," Katie Kahal talks about her work and favorite podcast.
Humanities Alum Receives 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship in Nonfiction
Kate Zambreno (AM’02) crosses the boundaries between nonfiction and fiction with remarkable ease. She is the author of eight books, most recently the novel Drifts to be published in paperback in May 2021 and her study on Hervé Guibert, To Write as If Already Dead, forthcoming in June. Zambreno received a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship in Nonfiction and is at work on an essay collection, The Missing Person.
“From the start, Kate Zambreno was a creative, experimental, and rigorously focused thinker whose writing refused conventional academic modes of reference and explanation, but which also tried to connect to people’s ordinary lives, fantasies, desires, and habits,” said Lauren Berlant, the George M. Pullman Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of English at the University of Chicago.
What Words Cannot Express: Ian Bostridge on the Power of Music
What can music express that words cannot? This question intrigues esteemed tenor Ian Bostridge, whose “idiosyncratic vocalism, intense theatricality, and extreme musicianship” place him at the top of his field.
These queries make up the subject of a series of virtual lectures — and a virtual performance — that Bostridge will give at the University of Chicago this month. In a free, probing three-part lecture entitled “Musical Identities,” Bostridge examines the deeply communicative means of music to capture the otherwise indescribable phenomena of life: identity, existence, and death.
One Humanities Scholar Awarded 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships have been awarded this year to four University of Chicago scholars, chosen on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise.
Prof. Ufuk Akcigit, Prof. Guanglei Hong, Asst. Prof. Mitchell S. Jackson and Prof. Tara Zahra are among the 184 fellows selected in this year’s class from nearly 3,000 applicants. Their fellowships will support research into the impacts of the Great Recession, a study of globalism and 20th-century Europe, and a work of historical fiction.
Vocalist Ian Bostridge to Deliver Lecture Series on Music and Identity
For acclaimed vocalist Ian Bostridge, classical music compositions count among the world’s most indispensable works of art—ones that should be as much a part of shared human experience as the poetry of Shakespeare, the paintings of Matisse and the novels of Charles Dickens.
The three-time Grammy Award winner seeks to help audiences connect to the resonance of classical music, and how the form expresses ideas of existence, love and loss and the inevitability of death.
This month, Bostridge will amplify that conversation as part of the Randy L. and Melvin R. Berlin Family Lectures, hosted annually by the Division of the Humanities at the University of Chicago. His lecture series, “Musical Identities,” will begin April 11 and continue April 17 and 24. Each presentation will be held virtually from 1 to 2:30 p.m. CDT. Registration for the series is free and open to the public.
Media Mentions: March 2021
The latest media mentions, quotes, profiles, and writings from Division of the Humanities faculty, students, staff, and alumni. Visit us on Twitter and Facebook for more updates.
Meet the Staff: Ahmet Dursun
In this month's edition of "Meet the Staff," Ahmet Dursun talks about the Office of Language Assessment and finding peaceful moments lakeside.