THE PURPOSE OF THE AWARD

The Hiett Prize in the Humanities is an annual award presented to a person who has not yet reached his or her full potential, but whose work in the humanities shows extraordinary promise and has a significant public or applied component related to cultural concerns. Its purpose is to encourage future leaders in the humanities by 1) recognizing their achievement and their potential and 2) assisting their work through a cash award of $50,000.

The Hiett Prize was endowed by Kim Hiett Jordan, a board member of the Dallas Institute, to honor her parents, who inspired in her a lifelong love of learning.  For its first year, nominations were received from all over the United States.

2006 CALL FOR NOMINATIONS

Nomination must be made by letter from an individual already established in the humanities. The applicant must submit the following three documents: a curriculum vitae of no more than four pages; a profile of published or accomplished work; and a plan for future scholarship and/or projects in the humanities.

Candidates must be within the early stages of a career track in which the primary work is in a field centered in or directly related to one or more of the humanities. Nominations will be accepted from anywhere in the United States.

Send nominations to:

The Hiett Prize

The Dallas Institute

2719 Routh Street

Dallas, Texas 75201

Nominations and complete portfolios must be postmarked on or before September 15, 2005.

2005 AWARD JUDGING

First-round judges for 2005:

Dr. Glenn Arbery, Senior Editor and Editorial Writer, People Newspapers, Dallas

Dr. Robert S. Dupree, University of Dallas

Dr. Willard Spiegelman, Southern Methodist University, Dallas

Dr. Joanne Stroud, Co-founder of The Dallas Institute

Dr. Donald Worster, University of Kansas, Lawrence

Categories of Portfolio Evaluation:

    1. Letter of recommendation

    2. Curriculum vitae

    3. Profile of published work

    4. Plan for future scholarship and/or projects in the humanities

    5. Public or applied component of past work and future plans

Finalist judges:

Professor Peter Gay, New York, NY

Professor Louise Cowan, Dallas, TX

Professor Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Atlanta, GA

2005 FINALISTS: THE TOP THREE
 

The top three finalists, Brad Gregory, Carlo Rotella, and Clifton Spargo, visited the Dallas Institute in February 2005, giving public presentations about their work. 

DR. BRAD STEPHAN GREGORY is Associate Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame.  He was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows and received early tenure at Stanford University.  He holds a Ph.D. degree in history from Princeton University.  He has received a large number of awards for both his scholarly work and his teaching.  In 1999 he published Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe, which won several awards and wide praise.  In addition, he has published numerous articles and is under contract with Harvard University Press for another book, Storming Heaven: Christianity in the Reformation Era.  He has done a course of lectures for the Teaching Company on the history of Christianity in the Reformation Era.  His future plans include a study of the transformation of Western beliefs, values,  institutions, and practices between the early Reformation and the American Constitution.

DR. CARLO ROTELLA is Associate Professor of English and Director of American Studies at Boson College.  He has also taught at the University of Massachusetts Boston, Lafayette College, and Wesleyan University.  He holds a Ph.D. degree from Yale University.  He has published three books: Cut Time: An Education at the Fights, which won a PEN New England Award and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize; Good with Their Hands: Boxers, Bluesmen, and Other Characters from the Rust Belt; and October Cities: The Redevelopment of Urban Literature.  He has also published chapters in other books and numerous essays and articles in journals and magazines.  He has appeared on the NPR shows Fresh Air and Only a Game.  His aim is to write about culture in ways that speak to both scholarly and more general readers.  He is currently involved in a writing project entitled Playing in Time: A Suite of Musical Lives.

DR. CLIFTON SPARGO is Associate Professor of English at Marquette University and has also taught at Yale University.  He earned his Ph.D. degree from Yale University.  In 2004 he published The Ethics of Mourning: Grief and Responsibility in Elegiac Literature, and has another book, Vigilant Memory: Emmanuel Levinas and the Death of the Other, scheduled for publication in Fall 2005 with Johns Hopkins Press.  He has published numerous articles and short stories; in fact, at present he has in progress a series of stories and two novels.  He has many awards for his fiction and for his work in Holocaust studies.  He has written and spoken widely about the Holocaust, about violence, grief, and the workings of memory, and about such timely, related topics as torture.  For the future, he says, he is equally committed to the continuation of his scholarly and teaching career and to the growth of his steadily progressing fictional career.

THE TOP THIRTY FINALISTS--LISTED IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

THE 2005 HIETT PRIZE WINNER

Dr. Brad Stephan Gregory, Associate Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame.

AWARD CELEBRATION FEATURING DAVID MCCULLOUGH

Celebrating America's Future will be the theme of the April 7 gala award ceremony at the Khmer Pavilion of the Wyndham Anatole Hotel in Dallas, when Dr. Larry Allums will present the first annual Hiett Prize in the Humanities to the winner.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author David McCullough will be the keynote speaker.  Bill Lively, Hiett Advisory Board member, will act as Master of Ceremonies.

The choir of The Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts will sing, previewing its upcoming appearance at Lincoln Center in New York.

ADVISORY BOARD

CONTACTS

For information regarding Hiett Prize nominations:

Dr. Claudia Allums

214 981-8813

callums@dallasinstitute.org