8 Professors to Receive Guggenheim Fellowships

Eight Harvard professors received Guggenheim Fellowships to conduct independent research, the New York-based foundation announced last week.

The eight, who come mainly from the University's senior faculty, are among 273 scholars and artists who are given on the average $23,000 from the foundation. An editor from the Harvard Business Review also was given a grant.

The fellowships are typically given to people who are mid-career and who have acquired a reputation within their professions. Winners are selected from Canada and the United States and this year represent 95 colleges and universities.

Recipients of the 63rd annual fellowships from Harvard were: Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures Jean-Marie Apostolides; Associate Professor of Pediatrics Raif S. Geha; Professor of Economics Jerry R. Green; Dillon Professor of the Civilization of France Stanley Hoffman; Richards Professor of Chemistry Martin Karplus; Professor of Sociology Lee Rainwater; Professor of Romance and Comparative Literatures Susan R. Suleiman; Professor of Law Alvin C. Warren, and Bernard Avishai, an associate editor of the Harvard Business Review.

A seven-member nation-wide committee, which included Baird Professor of Science E.O. Wilson, selected the winners from a pool of 3,421 applicants.

Grant recipients contacted said that they would take time off to conduct their research, which covers the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.

Apostolides, who has never before applied for a fellowship, said he would use the grant next year or the year after. He said that he hopes to complete his study of the evolution of the femme fatale in French film between 1930 and 1980, and the social and cinematic conceptions of women which grew out of this artistic device.

Suleiman, who in the past won a fellowship which she declined, said she plans to use the grant for the academic year, 1988-89. The professor is now working on a series of essays on French experimental writing, from surrealism to the present.

Avishai, a writer, said he plans to work on "an intellectual portrait of Arthur Koestler," a 20th-century British writer born in Hungary.

Warren applied for the grant to co-author a book on income tax policy.

Green applied to support his research efforts on the economic theory of uncertainty.

Rainwater will use his grant to examine economic well-being in advanced welfare societies.

Hoffmann, a previous winner of the Guggenheim Fellowship, said he may not accept the award this time.

Karplus said he will spend next year in Paris, to continue his ongoing study of the dynamics of proteins.

Geha said that next year he will study molecular immunology. He described this field as a new technology which he needed to learn, and said he wished to do so "away from the hassle of everyday life."