New Class of Fellows Announced for Second Year of The New York Public Library's Center for Scholars and Writers

The group will take up residence on September 11 in the Center's newly renovated quarters, in the landmark Humanities and Social Sciences Library, at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. The Center for Scholars and Writers offers a nine-month fellowship that allows researchers and creative writers to work at the Library on projects involving use of its collections.  Fellows receive a stipend and office space, and are encouraged to share ideas. Already, the Center has become established in New York City as a lively hub of intellectual discourse, and has recently presented the first series of lectures by the current class of scholars. Writings by the first class have also graced the pages of many publications during their tenure.

The year 2000-2001 appointees include three Director's Fellows, named by Professor Gay: André Aciman, Associate Professor of Literature and Language at Bard College; Rachel Hadas, poet and Professor of English at Rutgers University; and Bernhard Schlink, novelist and Professor of Law at the Humboldt University of Berlin. The other twelve fellows were chosen by a distinguished selection committee. A broad spectrum of interests and projects was reflected in the applicant pool consisting of 204 applicants from 22 countries.

The twelve fellows selected are: Jonathan Bush, Visiting Professor, University of Texas School of Law; Joseph Cady, Adjunct Associate Professor of Behavioral Medicine at The Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education, CUNY Medical School; Ileen A. DeVault, Associate Professor of Labor History, Cornell University School of Industrial & Labor Relations; Steve C. Fraser, Independent Scholar; Walter Frisch, Professor of Music, Columbia University; Francisco Goldman, novelist; Eiko Ikegami, Professor of Sociology of the Graduate Faculty at the New School University; Phillip Lopate, Adams Chair Professor, Department of English, Hofstra University; Anne Mendelson, Independent Scholar; Claudia Pierpont, Independent Scholar; Colm Tóibín, novelist; and Serinity Young, Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Southern Methodist University. (Please see attached background sheet for details).

"The dream of our leadership donors, Dorothy and Lewis Cullman, has come spectacularly to fruition in the Center's very first year," said Library President Paul LeClerc. "Our aim was to make the Library at Fifth Avenue a focal point for writers and thinkers in New York City, and this has begun to happen in a very real way. Now, under the leadership of Peter Gay, the Sue Ann and John Weinberg Director, we are bringing scholars into close daily contact with the Library's collections, and giving them the time and support to concentrate on their projects."

"When we opened the Center last September, my expectations were high, but it is promising to grow into an intellectual festival for New York and beyond," said Peter Gay.  "Now that the year is almost over, I must say that my hopes were surpassed in every respect.  The fellows work beautifully on their own and with one another.  Of course, the congenial environment that our architect Lewis Davis so brilliantly created for us deserves nothing less."

The British biographer Anthony Holden, whose life of Shakespeare will be published in the United States this June by Little Brown, said in a panel discussion held recently at the Library: "I couldn't have afforded to spend this amount of time researching a biography of the Romantic poet and journalist Leigh Hunt without this Center. I have been able to do research here in nine months that would have taken me five years under other circumstances. Normally I have to finance my book-writing via journalism, which saps both time and energy; without the fellowship, I doubt I would ever have realized my dream of writing the first full-scale biography of a man I have always admired."

"Two things have happened here for me," said architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable, also a current fellow at the Center, "Having both the time and resources for the kind of research never possible before, has led to a much deeper understanding of the architecture of the 20th century that I have written about as a critic and journalist ? and a personal renewal in terms of objectives and opportunities. The combination has led me into a dramatically new and productive phase of my professional life."

The Center for Scholars and Writers was made possible by a generous endowment by Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman in honor of Brooke Russell Astor, with major support provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Estate of Charles J. Liebman, Sue Ann and John Weinberg, The Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, and an additional gift from Sandra Payson.
 

Complete list of Fellows for 2000-2001
 

coyama, hscher: pro: 05-25-00