Winter-Spring 2006 |
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Awards, Honors, and Professorships
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History Faculty Earn a Pair of Getty Awards
Art History Faculty Earn a Pair of Getty Awards
Getty Foundation grants and fellowships are considered among the most prestigious in the field of art history. Most go to fellows, visiting scholars, and scholars in residence at the Getty Center. So when two UW faculty received awards this year, and their awards were among the minority to support research outside of the Getty Center, it was quite a feather in the cap of the School of Art’s Art History Division. Assistant Professor Margaret Laird won a postdoctoral fellowship—one of twelve awarded this year; Assistant Professor Cynthea Bogel snagged a collaborative research grant, one of five awarded. For Laird, the fellowship will allow her to spend a year turning her dissertation into a book examining how public artistic commissions functioned in imperial Roman towns. “I’m focusing on one social group, the Augustales,” Laird explains. “They’re equivalent to the middle class of ancient Roman towns. I sometimes jokingly compare them to the Elks Club of our day. This group was found all over the western empire and they did a lot of monument making.” Laird’s study is important to art history because the Augustales have never been studied archaeologically and she is venturing into lesser known towns, including some in Romania and Greece. Laird is looking at how the Augustales’ commissions helped cement their reputation in town and influence how the town was represented to the outside world. Bogel’s project is from the other side of the world. She specializes in Japanese art and recently completed a book about a ninth century Japanese monk, Kûkai, who traveled to China, where he studied a type of Buddhism unknown in Japan, called esotericism. When Kûkai returned to Japan in 806, he brought with him a variety of materials related to esotericism and subsequently founded a new sect of esoteric Buddhism in Japan. Because Buddhists were persecuted in China not long after his visit, Kûkai’s version of what they taught is the one that survives. “I became fascinated with what Kûkai really saw and did and what we could put back together based on the Chinese archaeological record, what he imported and what survived,” Bogel says. Bogel wanted to write a book on the objects Kûkai brought back with him and how the esoteric tradition was adapted in Japan, but she knew she couldn’t do it alone. She brought in Chinese art historian Eugene Wang of Harvard University and Buddhist scholar Ian Astely of the University of Edinburgh, and together they were awarded a Getty collaborative grant, with Bogel as principal investigator. Bogel will be on leave during fall and winter quarters next year to work on the book. “The book is about what happens when you import ideas and you import objects,” she says. “It’s about visual culture and material culture both, including the sutras and the scriptures as ideas and as physical objects.” He’s won a Pulitzer Prize and had an LP named Record of the Year. His works have been performed throughout the world by world-class orchestras, opera companies, and chamber musicians. He has recorded more than 40 albums as a piano soloist, accompanist, and chamber music performer.
Now William Bolcom (‘58), alumnus of the UW School of Music, has received more honors: a trio of 2006 Grammy Awards for his album, “Bolcom: Songs of Innocence and of Experience.’’ The album received Grammies for Best Classical Contemporary Composition, Best Classical Album, and Best Choral Performance. Bolcom, who has been honored by the University of Washington with the 2003 Alumnus Summa Laude Dignatus Award and the College of Arts and Sciences 1993 Distinguished Alumnus Award, told Columns magazine in 2003, “If you mix popular and classical forms, it brings life to both genres. By making them touch, something fresh, new, and organic grows. I like the traditional and the newest culture coexisting in the same piece. The classical masters had that possibility—Haydn is full of pop tunes—and I want it, too.” For the Columns magazine article with much more information about William Bolcom, click here.
Marcia Baker, professor emeritus of Earth and space sciences and atmospheric sciences, has been named Fellow of the American Geophysical Union for her work on cloud physics and electrification. Ted Beauchaine, associate professor of psychology, has received the 2006 American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology in the area of psychopathology. Dee Boersma, Wadsworth Endowed Chair in Conservation Science and professor and acting chair in the Department of Biology, received the Disney Wildlife Conservation award for 2005 for her study of Megallanic penguins. Larry Dalton, George B. Kauffman Professor of Chemistry and Electrical Engineering, was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dalton also received the QEM (Quality Education for Minorities)/MSE (Mathematics, Science, and Engineering) Network 2005 Giants in Science Award. Gonzalo Hernandez, research professor of Earth and space sciences, has been honored by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, which approved a new name for a valley in the Mount Bastion and Victoria Valley area: Hernandez Valley. Peter V. Hobbs, late professor of atmospheric sciences, was elected an Honorary Member of the American Meteorological Society, a lifetime achievement award. Peter knew of the award, but it was accepted posthumously by his wife. Robert A. Houze, professor of atmospheric sciences, received the Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal, the highest research prize of the American Meteorological Society, “for fundamental and enduring contributions towards the understanding of the broad spectrum of precipitations systems, their interactions with the larger scale circulations, and for his insightful leadership of field programs.” Jon Jory, professor of drama, has been awarded the Thomas DeGaetani Award from the United States Institute for Theatre Technology, Inc.—the association of design, production, and technology professionals in the performing arts and entertainment industry—for his outstanding lifetime contribution to the performing arts community. Shelly Lundberg, Castor Professor of Economics, has been appointed to the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors, which meets with the Governor quarterly to advise on economic policy issues. Frederick J. Newmeyer, Howard and Frances Nostrand Professor of Linguistics, was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Gerry Philipsen, professor of communication, received the Paul Boase Prize for 2005 from the Ohio University School of Communication, recognizing a career of distinguished scholarship in the study of communication. Stephen Porter, professor emeritus of Earth and space sciences, received the Distinguished Career Award from the Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology Division of the Geological Society of America, for demonstrated excellence in his contributions to science. Timothy Power, assistant professor of classics, has been named a Fellow of the Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University, for 2006-07. Mark T. Stoelinga, research assistant professor of atmospheric sciences, has received an Editor’s Award from the Monthly Weather Review “for consistently providing many in-depth and thorough reviews, and for providing special assistance to the editors on controversial manuscripts.” Sarah Stroup, assistant professor of classics, won the Women’s Classical Caucus award for the “Best Article” over the period 2002-05, for her article “Designing Women: Aristophanes’ Lysistrata and the ‘Hetairization’ of the Greek Wife.” Stephen
Turnovsky, Castor Professor of Economics, was awarded an
honorary doctorate by Université de la Méditerranée
in Marseille, France. [Winter-Spring 2006 - Table of Contents]
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