Fifteen junior faculty members have been selected to receive University fellowships in support of their research in 1996-97, according to an announcement by Richard H. Brodhead, dean of Yale College.
The fellowships are awarded annually to outstanding members of the junior faculty to help advance their research at a critical period in their careers. The recipients are freed from classroom teaching responsibilities and are given leave with salary to allow them to concentrate on their research.
Eight of the fellowships are in the humanities, three are in the natural sciences and four are in the social sciences. The humanities fellowships are funded by an endowment established through the bequest of the late Susan A. Ensign Morse of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and by the Sid R. Bass Fellowship Fund. The natural and social science fellowships are funded by support from the Sid R. Bass Fellowship Fund and by the Wendell W. Anderson Fellowship Fund, the Chauncey Keep Hubbard Fellowship Fund, the Allen Shelden Fellowship Fund, the Weyerhaeuser Family Teaching Fellowship Fund and the Woods Fellowship Fund.
Humanities fellowships
The recipients of fellowships in the humanities and descriptions of the work they are pursuing follow:
Ahmad S. Dallal, assistant professor of Near Eastern languages and civilizations -- an identification of the main trends that characterize 18th-century Islamic thought, including a highly developed reform tradition which, in contrast to the 19th-century tradition, was thwarted rather than invigorated by the encounter with Europe.
Kevis Goodman, assistant professor of English -- a study of conversation as metaphor and model for historical understanding and transmission in English Romanticism.
Susana Haydu, assistant professor of Spanish and Portuguese -- a comparative study of the role of memory in the poetry of Argentina and Chile after the years of repression 1973-86 .
Robert Johnston, assistant professor of history -- a synthetic history of the politics of the American middle class, including the significant currents of radical democratic and anticapitalist ideals that have informed middle-class politics.
Catriona MacLeod, assistant professor of Germanic languages and literatures -- a study of the reciprocities between sculpture and narrative in 18th- and 19th-century German texts.
Mark Miller, assistant professor of English -- a book on philosophical psychology in late medieval English literature, focusing on the ambition of ethical perfection and emotions of ethical regret, particularly guilt, shame and disgust.
Stephano Velotti, assistant professor of Italian -- an historical and theoretical study of the relation of ignorance and knowledge, highlighting ignorance's paradoxical status as the unavoidable "residue" of reflection.
Judith Wilson, assistant professor of history of art and African-American studies -- a book of essays on the intersections of "race" and gender in the work of such artists as Edmonia Lewis, Henry O. Tanner, Mary Cassatt, Romare Bearden, Adrian Piper, Lorna Simpson and Carrie Mae Weems, as well as filmmakers Spike Lee and Julie Dash.
Natural sciences fellowships
Recipients of the natural sciences fellowships and descriptions of their research projects follow:
Kurt Gibble, assistant professor of physics -- a study of the use of juggling atoms to probe quantum scattering.
Juhnyong Kim, assistant professor of biology -- a study of the molecular evolution of early developmental genes in Drosophila and a reference textbook "Quantitative Phylogenetic Estimation."
John Wood, assistant professor of chemistry -- the chemical syntheses of several medicinally important natural products.
Social sciences fellowships
Recipients of the social sciences fellowships and descriptions of the research projects that will undertake follow:
Kurt Frey, assistant professor of psychology -- an analysis of various aspects of the question "How, why and with what consequences do people evaluate the moral and ethical dimensions of their own or others' personalities?"
Joshua Gamson, assistant professor of sociology -- a study of how lesbians, gays, transsexuals and bisexuals are used by and make use of the daytime television talk show genre.
Oliver Linton, assistant professor of economics -- an investigation of nonparametric and semiparametric statistical methods and their application to economics data.
Mark Whisman, assistant professor of psychology -- an evaluation of an integrative biopsychosocial model for understanding the etiology of depression, especially in relation to marital conflict.