Two University of Notre Dame faculty members are among the 187 artists, scholars, and scientists receiving prestigious Guggenheim fellowships this year, according to an announcement last week from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
Paul M. Cobb, associate professor of history and fellow of the Medieval Institute, and Julia V. Douthwaite, professor of French and assistant provost for international studies, were elected Guggenheim fellows from a field of some 3,000 applicants.
Cobb, a specialist in Islamic social and cultural history, is the author of a recently published biography of a 12th century Syrian hero entitled “Usama ibn Munqidh: Warrior Poet of the Age of Crusade.” Douthwaite, a specialist in 18th and early 19th century French literature, is at work on a literary history of the French Revolution.She is the author of two books and the co-editor of three volumes of essays in her field.
Guggenheim fellowships have been given annually since 1925 to writers, playwrights, painters, sculptors, photographers, film makers, choreographers, physical and biological scientists, social scientists, and scholars in the humanities “on the basis of distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment.” Past fellows include photographer Ansel Adams, composer Aaron Copland, poet Langston Hughes, scientist Linus Pauling and novelist Eudora Welty.
Originally published by at newsinfo.nd.edu on April 11, 2006.