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Three University faculty members have been awarded National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellowships for University Teachers for the 1999-2000 academic year.
The winners, who teach in the College of Arts and Sciences, are anthropology professor Catherine Lutz; philosophy professor Jay Rosenberg; and Mary Sheriff, art professor and acting chair. They will spend six months to a year researching their topics and eventually will write books as a result.
NEH awarded 86 university teaching fellowships to faculty members at 56 universities for 1999-2000. Only faculty at the University of Michigan, Indiana University, the University of Iowa and Harvard University received more fellowships than Carolina.
Lutz
Lutz will use her fellowship to complete a five-chapter book on Fayetteville and its culture and history as a military town -- the first such study by an anthropologist. Her research, begun in 1994, includes 60 interviews with longtime residents, civic leaders and others; numerous city government and military documents; newspapers; and the census.
"This work represents a contribution to a relatively neglected aspect of the history of the South, which is its many military cities and its military ethos," said Lutz.
Her research, titled "War's Wages: A Military City and the American 20th Century," addresses issues ranging from local women's memories of death and romance during World War II to how changing Army family policies have shaped Fayetteville's economic history.
Her book is tentatively scheduled for publication late next year.
Rosenberg
Rosenberg will research different ideas of knowledge. His project, "The Primacy of Inquiry: A Procedural Account of Knowledge," will explore alternative notions of knowledge as the goal of inquiry, a concept that had its roots in ancient Greece.
"The project sounds terribly abstract," said Rosenberg, "but, as Aristotle argued, it is our fundamental nature to be seekers of knowledge, and so coming to understand what is involved in coming to know is an important part of coming to understand ourselves, who and what we are."
Sheriff
Sheriff's project is titled "Man's Inspiration, Woman's Disease: Art and Enthusiasm in the French Enlightenment." It will explore the concept of enthusiasm as it relates to issues of reason and unreason, masculinity and femininity, sexuality and creativity.
"Works created during the enlightenment often reflect distinctive gender relationships and draw on mythical themes, such as those of Pymaglion and Prometheus," said Sheriff.
She will focus her research on 18th-century French concepts of artistic creativity as expressed in the day's paintings, medical sciences, literature and book illustrations.
The fellowship will help her complete a book now in progress. Some of her research has been presented at the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Aarhus in Denmark; and the Louvre.
University fellowships give professors financial support to take time off from teaching and enhance their capacities as teachers, researchers and interpreters of the humanities.
The awards advance scholarly knowledge in specific areas but often bring the humanities to a larger public as well. NEH, though federally funded, also receives funds from private donors.
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