Making Us Proud

Last Monday, the Harvard community welcomed the news that professor Stephen J. Greenblatt of the English Department received a Pulitzer Prize in the category of General Nonfiction for his book “The Swerve: How the World Became Modern.” The Pulitzers, awarded annually, recognize special achievement in the fields of letters, drama, and music and are among the highest honor that a writer can receive. Professor Greenblatt’s book, which describes the discovery of Lucretius’ epic poem “On the Nature of Things,” its vibrant narrative, and its connection to modernity, justly merited the award.

We would like to congratulate professor Greenblatt for his accolade at the same time as we recognize the numerous high-profile prizes that Harvard affiliates have received in the recent past. James Wood, who is also a professor in the English Department, was two weeks elected to a fellowship at the prestigious Royal Society of Literature. He joins the company of such names as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Butler Yeats, and will have the opportunity to confirm his membership using either Lord Byron’s quill or Charles Dickens’s pen. In another coup for the humanities, Briggs-Copeland Lecturer Henri Cole obtained the prestigious Jackson Poetry Prize, accompanied by a lucrative financial purse. To mention just one last outstanding example, the two recipients of last year’s Nobel Prize in Economics both count Harvard as an alma mater. Thomas J. Sargent, currently at New York University, received his Ph.D here, as did Christopher A. Sims ’68, also an alumnus of the college.

Such positive news as these awards, and the many others collected by Harvard affiliates, should be vaunted at our university. Harvard has enormous prestige, but our institution should not ever be content to rest on its laurels or even for a moment look to past achievement without prioritizing what can be accomplished in the future. Each new accolade received by a Harvard affiliate not only grants personal recognition where it is well deserved, but also clearly enhances the reputation of the University as a whole. These awards serve as confirmation that, nearly four centuries after its establishment, Harvard continues to be a vibrant hotspot for original thinking.

In the case of professor Greenblatt in particular, it is heartening to see that professors can produce work that balances innovative scholarship with popular appeal. Academia should be concerned not only with the depth of its research, but also with the breadth of its reach. Works like “The Swerve,” whose author is widely credited with formulating the theory of New Historicism, help make scholarship accessible to mass audiences, an interaction that benefits wider readers and academia alike.

On a different note, it is reproachable that the jury for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction did not elect a winner among the three finalists. The judges declined to offer the award, noting that none of the finalists—Denis Johnson’s “Train Dreams,” Karen Russell’s “Swamplandia!” and David Foster Wallace’s posthumously published “The Pale King”—had received the necessary majority. Prizes like the Pulitzer are crucial for stimulating interest in promising authors, especially during this difficult time for the publishing industry. It is perhaps especially unfortunate that the judges chose to snub David Foster Wallace, whose tragic suicide in 2008 deprived the literary world of one of its brightest stars. This would have been a fitting occasion to honor his memory, and his work. Wallace once studied philosophy at Harvard, and a Pulitzer for him would have been yet more welcome news. However, at least as far as prizes are concerned, we are proud to note that Harvard has had plenty of good news in recent days.