Three UCSB Scholars Awarded Guggenheim Fellowships

Three faculty members at the University of California, Santa Barbara, are among the 168 scholars, scientists, and artists who have received 1998 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowships. Appointed on the basis of unusually distinguished achievement and exceptional promise for future accomplishment, Guggenheim Fellows receive grants enabling them to pursue individual research or artistic projects.

The UC Santa Barbara recipients are:

Jody Enders, a professor of French, who will use her fellowship to finish rearching and writing "Death by Drama and other Medieval Urban Legends." The book, Enders' third, examines the increase of apocryphal folk talkes during the turbulent years surrounding the Reformation. "The so-called end of the Middle Ages was a period of tremendous social upheaval. Apparently, one of the ways people expressed the anxiety of that age was through the telling of bizarre and fanciful stories about the theater, " said Enders, who won the inaugural Scaglione Prize for French and Francophone Studies in 1993 for her book "Rhetoric and the Origins of Medieval Drama."

Mattison Mines, a professor of anthropology, whose Guggenheim will support the writing of his book on the social history of individuality in South India over the last 350 years. "In Sound India people have traditionally presented themselves publicly in a manner that reflects the social mores of that era. As law and politics have evolved in the region, so have these public presentations of the self,'' said Mines, who conducted research in South India for the project under an earlier Fulbright grant. He is the author of three previous books.

Elisabeth Weber, an associate professor of German, whose fellowship will support the writing of her latest book, tentatively titled, "Meditating on the Shoah: Where Philosophy and Psychoanalysis Meet." "Contemporary French philosophy and psychoanalysis have been deeply marked by the Shoah, the destruction of European Jewry. The focus of my attention will be on the works of Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Lacan, and Jacques Derrida, who have given us precious tools to think about the unprecedented eruptions of terror that have characterized our century," said Weber, whose 1990 book, "Persecution and Trauma: Emmanuel Levinas' Philosophy," was honored by the Margrit-Egner Foundation.

"We are extremely honored that our distinguished colleagues, professors Enders, Mines, and Weber, have received this exceptional recognition. They bring honor to themselves and add stature to our proud campus," said UCSB Chancellor Henry T. Yang.

Guggenheim Fellowships are considered to be among the pre-eminent honors in the academic world. This year alone more than 3,000 scholars, scientists, and artists applied for the scholarships. Since 1925, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has granted more than $180 million in fellowships to more than 14,000 individuals. The foundation relies on an extensive network of advisory panels to make recommendations regarding applicants.

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