Rome Prize Winners 2008

Dal Thursday 17 April 2008
al Sunday 20 April 2008

New York (10 April 2008) – Today the Trustees of the American Academy in Rome announced the winners of the 112th annual Rome Prize Competition. Awardees are provided with a stipend, a study or studio, and room and board for a period of 6 months to 2 years.

The announcement was made by Adele Chatfield-Taylor, FAAR’84, President of the American Academy in Rome, who stated that the Trustees had awarded the fellowships at the board meeting earlier in the day. The following individuals will take up residence at the
American Academy in Rome in September 2008:

ROME PRIZE WINNERS 2008

ANCIENT STUDIES

Emeline Hill Richardson/Samuel H. Kress Foundation Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize
(year one of a two-year fellowship)
SCOTT CRAVER
McIntire Department of Art, University of Virginia
Patterns of Complexity: An Index and Analysis of Urban Property Investment at Pompeii

Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize
SUSAN A. CURRY
Department of Classical Studies, Indiana University
Human Identities and Animal Others in the Second Century C.E.

Frances Barker Tracy/Samuel H. Kress Foundation/ Helen M. Woodruff Fellowship of the
Archaeological Institute of America Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize
(year two of a two-year fellowship)
JOHN N. N. HOPKINS
Department of Art and Art History, The University of Texas at Austin
The Topographical Transformation of Archaic Rome: A New Interpretation of Architecture
and Geography in the Early City

Andrew Heiskell Post-Doctoral Rome Prize
PATRICIA LARASH
Assistant Professor, Department of Classical Studies, Boston University
Martial's Readers, Rome's Audiences

Arthur Ross Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize
MATTHEW NOTARIAN
Department of Classics, University at Buffalo
Civic Transformation in Early Imperial Latium: An Archaeological and Social History of
Praeneste, Tibur and Tusculum


National Endowment for the Humanities/Andrew Heiskell Post-Doctoral Rome Prize
HÉRICA VALLADARES
Assistant Professor, Department of Classics, Johns Hopkins University
On Tenderness: The Semantics of Love in Roman Painting and Poetry

ARCHITECTURE

Arnold W. Brunner Rome Prize
MATTHEW HURAL
Lecturer, Department of Architecture, University of Virginia
Designer, Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects
Between Inside and Out. Aurelian Gates

Gorham P. Stevens Rome Prize
URSULA EMERY McCLURE & MICHAEL A. McCLURE
Principals, emerymcclure architecture
Terra Viscus: Hybrid Tectonic Precedent.

DESIGN

Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon Polsky Rome Prize
ROBERT HAMMOND
Co-Founder & President, Friends of the Highline
Designing the Tiber

Katherine Edwards Gordon Rome Prize
CATHY LANG HO
Independent Writer and Editor
Broadband Architecture: A study of how new media outlets are challenging the authority of
print publications

HISTORIC PRESERVATION AND CONSERVATION

National Endowment for the Arts Rome Prize
ANDREW J. KRANIS
Decor Project Manager, Whole Foods Market
Green Piazza: Community Ecology in the City

Booth Family Rome Prize
ROSA LOWINGER
Conservator of Sculpture and Architecture, Los Angeles, CA
Art Vandalism: A Comprehensive Study of its Causes and Effects, With an Emphasis on
Conservation of Contemporary Public Art.

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Prince Charitable Trusts Rome Prize
CHRIS COUNTS
Senior Associate, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates Inc., Landscape Architects
Painting and Drawing as a Means to Study the Spatial Registration, Appropriated Use, and
Movement of Masterpieces of the Italian Urban Landscape

Garden Club of America Rome Prize
HOPE H. HASBROUCK
Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, The University of Texas at Austin
Interpreting Cultural Territories Through Prospect and Passage

LITERATURE

John Guare Writer’s Fund Rome Prize, a gift of Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman
BRAD KESSLER
Writer
Editing The Goat Diaries and starting a new novel

Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize, a gift of the Drue Heinz Trust/American Academy of Arts and
Letters
DANA SPIOTTA
Writer
Unnamed Novel

MEDIEVAL STUDIES

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Post-Doctoral Rome Prize
CARRIE BENEŠ
Assistant Professor of Medieval and Renaissance History, New College of Florida
SPQR Transformed: Post-Classical Fortunes of a Classical Acronym

Samuel H. Kress Foundation Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize
(year two of a two-year fellowship)
ERIK GUSTAFSON
Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
Tradition and Renewal in the Thirteenth-Century Franciscan Architecture of Tuscany

Phyllis G. Gordan/Samuel H. Kress Foundation Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize
(year one of a two-year fellowship)
ANNIE MONTGOMERY LABATT
History of Art, Yale University
In Search of the “Eastern” Image: Sacred Painting in Eighth and Ninth Century Rome

National Endowment for the Humanities/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Post-Doctoral Rome
Prize
JOHN PARKER
Associate Professor, Department of English, Macalester College
Drama and the Death of God, or The Gospel of Seneca

MODERN ITALIAN STUDIES

Paul Mellon Post-Doctoral Rome Prize
MARGARET FISHER
Video Director and Publisher, Second Evening Art / BMI
Through the eyes of children: a re-assessment of the role of futurism in the development of
early Italian Radio under Fascism

Donald and Maria Cox Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize
GREGORY TENTLER
History of Art, University of Pennsylvania
Made in Italy: Piero Manzoni and the Birth of the International Avant-Garde 1954-1963

MUSICAL COMPOSITION

Luciano Berio Rome Prize
KEERIL MAKAN
Assistant Professor of Music, Music and Theater Arts Section, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology
Three new works: Hover for electric guitar and orchestra; a trio for flute, viola, and harp;
and Tracker, a chamber opera

Elliott Carter Rome Prize
KURT ROHDE
Assistant Professor, Composition/Theory, Department of Music, University of California,
Davis
Co-director, The Empyrean Ensemble
Artistic Director, The Left Coast Chamber Ensemble
Composition of Two New Works: A Violin Concertino for violinist Axel Strauss, and a puppet
opera entitled “A Shadow Opera”

RENAISSANCE AND EARLY MODERN STUDIES

Marian and Andrew Heiskell Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize
ERIC BIANCHI
Department of Music, Yale University
Center of the World: Athanasius Kircher at the Jesuit Colleges of Rome

Millicent Mercer Johnsen Post-Doctoral Rome Prize
ELIZABETH McCAHILL
Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of the South
Reinventing Rome: 1400-1450

VISUAL ARTS

John Armstrong Chaloner/Jacob H. Lazarus-Metropolitan Museum of Art Rome Prize
HISHAM M. BIZRI
Filmmaker and Assistant Professor of Film, Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative
Literature, University of Minnesota
Screenplay: The Last Day of Summer

Harold M. English Rome Prize
DAVID HUMPHREY
Artist and Instructor, School of Art, Yale University
Blind Handshake

Joseph H. Hazen Rome Prize
MARIE LORENZ
Artist, Brooklyn, NY
Tiber River Navigation

Abigail Cohen Rome Prize
MATTHEW MONTEITH
Artist/Photographer, Brooklyn, NY
Living City, Living Art


THE JURYS

The Rome Prize is awarded annually through an open competition that is juried by leading
artists and scholars in the fellowship fields. Forty-three individuals were invited to make up
nine juries to review the applications. The juries this year were chaired by Michael C.J.
Putnam, FAAR'64, RAAR'70 (Ancient Studies), Michael Graves, FAAR'62, RAAR'78
(Design); Charles Granquist (Historic Preservation & Conservation), Charles Simic
(Literature, through the Committee for Awards of the American Academy of Arts and
Letters), Richard Gyug (Medieval Studies), Alexander Stille (Modern Italian Studies), Fred
Lerdahl, RAAR’88 (Musical Composition), John Pinto, FAAR'75, RAAR'06 (Renaissance
and Early Modern Studies), and Laurie Simmons, RAAR’05 (Visual Arts). For a complete
list of jurors and their professional affiliations, please visit www.aarome.org.

FAAR Fellow, American Academy in Rome
RAAR Resident, American Academy in Rome


THE AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME

Established in 1894 and chartered by an Act of Congress in 1905, the American Academy in
Rome is a center that sustains independent artistic pursuits and humanistic studies. It is
situated on the Janiculum, the highest hill within the walls of Rome. Each year, through a
national competition, the Rome Prize is awarded to up to 30 individuals -- emerging artists
(working in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Design, Historic Preservation and
Conservation, Literature, Musical Composition, or Visual Arts) and scholars (working in
Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance and Early Modern, or Modern Italian Studies). The
application deadline is November 1st. The Academy community also includes invited
Residents and Affiliated Fellows. For more information please visit www.aarome.org.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
Shawn Miller, Program Director
American Academy in Rome
7 East 60 Street
New York, NY 10022
Tel. 212-751-7200 ext. 42
Fax. 212-751-7220
E-mail: s.miller@aarome.org