Summer 2002
John Farrell (Department of Literature), for completion of a study entitled Paranoia and Modernity: Transformations of Agency from Luther to Stendhal. Professor Farrell writes:
The dominant figures of modern culture exhibit a strange susceptibility to delusions of grandeur and unfounded fears of persecution—in other words, to paranoia. It is what may be described as a "paranoid slant," a penchant for over-estimating one's own importance, a morbid concern with autonomy and control, and the finding of hostile motives in other people's behavior. ... [In my present work-in-progress] I attempt to excavate the origins ... by tracing the vicissitudes of modern conceptions and portrayals of agency.
Edward Hinchman (Department of Philosophy/Religious Studies), for completion of a full draft of a forthcoming book entitled Trust and Reason. Dr. Hinchman's book will be the basis of a CMC course, "Rhetoric and Reasoning," that he will teach in the Fall of 2002. Professor Hinchman describes the course as follows:
What is it to reason with others? How can a speaker get her hearer to believe or do what she wants him to believe or do simply by speaking to him? What is it to do this in the way characteristic of reasoning with him, as opposed to mere manipulation? This course will survey recent work in the philosophy of language, epistemology, and ethics on the subject of interpersonal reasoning.
Ann Meyer (Department of Literature), for research leading to a book on the authorship and patronage of four late medieval English poems which include Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; and for a study of Marian imagery and influence in early modern art, liturgy, and literature.
Peter Skerry (Department of Government), for an article to be published in The Public Interest. Dr. Skerry's article addresses the apprehensions that scholars and educated lay readers share concerning immigrant Arabs and Muslims in America: Do the assimilative forces of American society work on these group as powerfully as they do on other immigrants, or are these potentially corrosive forces the very ones responsible for imposing uniquely intense pressures on members of these communities. Should we be more concerned with extremists taking advantage of the openness of American society, with how foreign interests may manipulate our institutions, or with how we as a society treat the Arabs and Muslims among us?
David Yoo (Department of History), for a project entitled Sacred Cause: Religion and Politics in Korean America, a historical study that focuses upon the complex relationship between religious experience and political activity as a defining feature of Korean-American immigrant communities.