Lydie Moudileno, Marion Frances Chevalier Professor of French and professor of French and American studies and ethnicity and comparative literature, has been bestowed the Ordre des Palmes Académiques (Order of Academic Palms). This national honor conferred by the French Republic upon eminent academics and educators acknowledges their invaluable contributions to the realms of academia, education and scientific inquiry.
Joan Flores-Villalobos, assistant professor of history, has earned a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, which supports research, education, preservation and public programs in the humanities. The grant will facilitate research and writing for her forthcoming book Veins of Gold: Race, Environment, and Nation in an Amazonian Borderland.
Jessica Zu, assistant professor of religion and East Asian languages and cultures, was appointed a 2023–2024 Faculty Fellow of the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study for her project “Karma, Science, and a Just Society: Buddhist Philosophical Toolboxes for Post-Racial and Post-Caste Worldmaking.” The residential fellowship includes a stipend, a research allowance and subsidized housing as well as weekly work-in-progress seminars and communication skills training designed to help fellows develop work that is accessible to broad audiences.
Adrian De Leon, assistant professor of American studies and ethnicity, has won the 2022–2023 Carleton C. Qualey Memorial Award for his article “Frank Mancao’s ‘Pinoy Image’: Photography, Masculinity, and Respectability in Depression-Era California” in the Journal of American Ethnic History. The award, established by the Immigration and Ethnic History Society, recognizes and honors the best article published in the journal during the 2022 calendar year.
Percival Everett, Distinguished Professor of English, has won the 2023 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award for his novel Dr. No (Graywolf Press, 2022). The prize recognizes a book-length work of any genre for its originality, merit and impact. The award judges noted, “This is such a strange and brilliant book. Nothing like it has existed before.”
Robin Coste Lewis, writer in residence, has been awarded the 2023 Pen/Voelker Award for Poetry for her collection To The Realization of Perfect Helplessness (Knopf, 2022). The annual award is presented to a poet whose collection of poetry represents a notable and accomplished literary presence. The award judges noted Lewis’ innovative use of various mediums and “collage-like weaving of texts and [literary] figures,” expanding “ways we might imagine what it means to ‘read’ and ‘see’ on the plane or stage of a book’s page.”
Benjamin Uchiyama, associate professor of history, has earned an Award for 20th Century Japan Research Award from the Nathan and Jeanette Miller Center for Historical Studies and the University of Maryland Libraries. The annual award supports research in the libraries’ Gordon W. Prange Collection and East Asia Collection on topics related to the period of the Allied Occupation of Japan and its aftermath, from 1945 to 1960.
Sonya Lee, professor of art history, East Asian languages and cultures and religion, has earned a gold medal in the religion (Eastern/Western) category of the Independent Publisher Book (IPPY) Awards. The medal recognizes her book _Temples in the Cliffside_ (University of Washington Press, 2022). The IPPY Awards aim to reward those who exhibit the courage, innovation and creativity to bring about change in the world of publishing.
Viet Thanh Nguyen, University Professor, Aerol Arnold Chair of English and professor of English, American studies and ethnicity and comparative literature, has been chosen as the 2023–24 Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard University. The Norton Professorship recognizes individuals “of extraordinary talent who, in addition to their particular expertise, have the gift of wide dissemination and wise expression.” Past honorees include T.S. Eliot, Jorge Luis Borges and Czeslaw Milosz. As a recipient of the honor, Nguyen will deliver six lectures over the course of the academic year.
