Radcliffe appoints fellows

Forty-four women and men have been named Radcliffe Institute Fellows for the upcoming academic year. At Radcliffe, each of these scholars, scientists, and artists will work individually and across disciplines on projects chosen for their quality and long-term consequence. Together, the fellows’ distinguished academic, professional, and creative endeavors are the focus of a scholarly community, which was established in October 1999 when Radcliffe College merged with Harvard University to form the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

“We are delighted to welcome these outstanding individuals to Radcliffe, ” said Drew Gilpin Faust, Dean of the Institute. “From an unprecedented number of applicants, we have selected a group of fellows that span the range of academic disciplines and the creative arts. The fellowship class includes playwrights, composers, a sculptor, historians, a linguist, an archaeologist, anthropologists, a painter, literary scholars, mathematicians, political scientists, sociologists, a physicist, a poet, a biologist, and a philosopher. They will work on projects ranging from a study of ‘Women and Bankruptcy’ to ‘Women’s Rights in India’; from ‘The Critical Role of Flow-Modified Permittivity in Electrorheology’ to ‘Optimal Tone Mapping in African Language’; from ‘Acupuncture in Chinese History’ to ‘Genes in Sea Urchins’ to ‘Monteverdi’s Unruly Women.’ We eagerly await their arrival in the fall when they will begin a year that will enrich their work, as well as the entire community at Radcliffe and Harvard.”

Psychologists Nancy Chodorow, author of “The Reproduction of Mothering,” and Judith Herman, author of “Trauma and Recovery,” novelist Gish Jen, National Public Radio correspondent Mary Kay Magistad, filmmaker Barbara Hammer, and political scientist Robert Lieberman are among the fellows for next year. In keeping with Radcliffe’s historical commitment to women, some of the fellows are pursuing work of relevance to the study of women, gender, and society. Along with the projects described above, these include Harvard psychologist Pamela Keel, who will use archival data from the Murray Research Center at Radcliffe to study bulimia nervosa in Harvard undergraduates; historian Afsaneh Najmabadi, who will study transformations of gender and sexuality in 19th century Iran; and literature professor Lingzhen Wang, who will explore the political, cultural and social contexts of modern Chinese women’s autobiographical writings.

The 2001-02 Radcliffe Fellows were chosen through a rigorous selection process that included more than a dozen committees and 80 selectors in a variety of disciplines. This year the pool of 569 applications represented 38 countries drawn from 46 disciplines. The fellows receive a stipend, office space, and access to the libraries and resources of Harvard University. Throughout the year, fellows will have the opportunity to present their works-in-progress during weekly lectures, art exhibits, readings, and performances that are open to the public.

The fellows are: Bridie Andrews, history of medicine, Harvard University; Sarah Babb, sociology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Ina Baghdiantz-McCabe, European history, Tufts University; Bettina Bergo, philosophy, Loyola College; Christiane Biermann, evolutionary and organismic biology, University of Washington; Nancy Chodorow, sociology, University of California, Berkeley; Mary Cecilia Churchill, religion, University of Colorado, Boulder; Sally Clarke, American history, University of Texas, Austin; Lizabeth Cohen, American history, Harvard University; Monique Deveaux, political science, Williams College; Sonja Drobnic, sociology, University of Bremen;

Mary Maples Dunn, American history, Cambridge, Mass.; Gina Ferrari, sculpture, Southfield, Mich.; Bonnie Gordon, musicology, State University of New York, Stony Brook; Monica Green, history of medicine, Duke University; Barbara Hammer, filmmaking, New York, N.Y.; Judith Herman, psychology, Harvard Medical School; Yue Hu, physics, Wellesley College; Wilt Idema, Asian literature, Harvard University; Gish Jen, fiction, Cambridge, Mass.; Honour Kane, playwrighting, New York, N.Y.; Joan Kaufman, population studies, Ford Foundation; Pamela Keel, psychology, Harvard University; Megan Kerr, mathematics, Wellesley College;

Alice Kessler-Harris, American history, Columbia University; Aurorae Khoo, playwrighting, North Hollywood, Calif.; Jacqueline Jeeyoung Kim, music composition, Yale University; Susanne Kühn, painting, Somerville, Mass.; Rebecca Lee, fiction, University of North Carolina, Wilmington; Robert Lieberman, political science, Columbia University; Mary Kay Magistad, nonfiction/journalism, National Public Radio; Constance Merritt, poetry, Lincoln, Neb.; Afsaneh Najmabadi, Near Eastern history, Barnard College;

Judith Plaskow, religion, Manhattan University; Irene Silverblatt, anthropology, Duke University; Lisa Szczepura, chemistry, Illinois State University; Tatiana Toro, mathematics, University of Washington; Kamala Visweswaran, anthropology, University of Texas, Austin; Lingzhen Wang, Asian literature, Brown University; Elizabeth Warren, law, Harvard Law School; Nanny Wermuth, mathematics, Johnannes Gutenberg, Universitaet Mainz; James Youniss, psychology, Catholic University; Arlene Zallmann, music composition, Welleseley College; Cheryl Zoll, linguistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.