Two faculty chosen to be Guggenheim Fellows

A distinguished art historian and historian of science at UW–Madison have received fellowships this spring from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.

Fellows are appointed by recommendations from expert advisors on the basis of distinguished past achievement and the promise of future accomplishment. The new fellows from UW–Madison are Henry J. Drewal, Evjue-Bascom Professor of Art History and Afro-American Studies, and Gregg A. Mitman, professor of history of science, medical history and science and technology studies.

Drewal was selected for his study of how the senses aid in the understanding of African art.

“Most writing, especially from the ‘West,’ reflects a mind-body split which devalues the senses and bodily experiences in the processes of understanding, yet I believe that it is with all of our senses that we perceive, understand and appreciate the arts,” he says. “My own apprenticeship with a Yoruba sculptor in Nigeria years ago taught me the value of multi-sensorial experience. My theoretical approach, which I call ‘sensiotics,’ aims to explore how African cultures use and integrate the senses in order to create and respond to the arts and aesthetic experiences.”

Mitman was selected for his book, “Breathing Space: An Ecological History of Allergy in America, ” to be published by Yale University Press.

“The book offers a panoramic view of how human actions and attitudes toward natural and built environments have been shaped by allergic illnesses,” he says. “It also shows how society, by ignoring the role of the environment in searching for simple solutions, not only has failed to solve the mystery of disease but has contributed to its incidence.”

The two UW–Madison faculty were among 185 Guggenheim Fellowship winners.

In addition, Eugene Walter Domack, who received a B.S. from UW–Madison in 1978 in geology and geophysics, won a fellowship for a study of snowball-earth hypothesis. He is now a professor of geology at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y.