Guggenheim Fellowship Awarded to Four Profs

Four Harvard professors will take a break from teaching next year to pursue independent research, courtesy of one of the nation's most prestigious academic fellowships.

The four--winners of John Simon Guggenheim Fellowships, which recognize scholars, scientists and artists for outstanding ability--said yesterday that they welcomed the opportunity to conduct research.

"The hardest thing when you're a senior professor is to get a little time to write," said Professor of Sociology Theda Skocpol.

Skocpol, an expert on states and social revolutions in different countries, said she plans to use her six-month fellowship to write a book on American social policies since the 1880s.

"This is really helpful because I have another three years until my sabbatical," said Mellon Professor of the Humanities Thomas M. Scanlon, Jr., another award winner. "It allows me to consolidate and work in detail the things I have been trying out in the last two or three years."

Skocpol, Scanlon and two other fellowship winners--Jurzykowski Professor of Polish Language and Literature Stanislaw Baranczak and Littauer Professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy Isadore Twersky--all said they planned to develop their Guggenheim-sponsored research into books.

Scanlon said that during his seven-month fellowship, he will draw from published articles and ideas he has been developing since the early 1980s to write a book on "contractualist" moral philosophy.

Baranczak said he will devote his six-month award to writing a book on the history of Polish poetry since World War II. Because there are "hundreds of [Polish] poets after 1944," the book will be "a very extensive work," he said.

A scholar of modern Polish poetry, Baranczak has already published eight books on Polish literature, as well as translations.

Twersky, who received a full year fellowship, said he planned to study "the relationship between Jewish law, which is the core of Judaism and various meta-legal systems." His research will culminate in a book about Jewish law, philosophy and mysticism, he said.

The Guggenheim Foundation awards fellowships based on "unusually distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment."

Fellowship vary in length from six months to a year and the average stipend paid to recipients is $26,000, according to a foundation spokesperson.

This year, 198 winners were chosen out of 3144 applicants.