By Kate Rix

Spring was a season of recognition for faculty in the Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences. Professors were honored with commendations for their achievements by some of academia’s most esteemed institutions, and a recent graduate dissertation received a national award.

American Philosophical Society

Two Berkeley professors have been elected to the nation’s oldest learned society: Leslie Kurke, the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor in classics and comparative literature; and John R. Searle, the Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor of Philosophy.

The APS was founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743. The society promotes useful knowledge in the sciences and humanities through excellence in scholarly research, professional meetings, publications, library resources and community outreach.

Guggenheim

Rosemary Joyce, professor of anthropology, Gregory Levine, professor of art history, and R. Jay Wallace, professor of philosophy, were named 2010 Guggenheim fellows, receiving financial support for their research projects.

Joyce, an archaeologist whose research interests include ceramic analysis and household archaeology, is working in the area of history and materiality from an archaeological perspective.

Levine’s focus is on the art and architecture of Japan. His project will look at the role of sculpted Buddha heads in devotional and contemporary imaginations.

Wallace works on philosophical questions about the nature of responsibility, moral psychology and practical reason.

American Academy of Arts & Sciences

Established in 1780 by John Adams, the prestigious American Academy of Arts & Sciences elected four Berkeley faculty in the social sciences as new members, bringing the total number of Berkeley AAAS fellows to 234.

The newest AAAS members from Berkeley’s social sciences faculty are: Ruth Berins Collier, professor of political science; Neil Fligstein, Class of 1939 Chancellor’s Professor of sociology; Carla Hesse, Peder Sather Professor of European History and dean of Social Sciences; and Emmanuel Saez, professor of economics.

Sloan Research Fellowships

Young faculty members in economics and psychology received prestigious Sloan Research Fellowships this spring. The awards are given annually to scientists, mathematicians and economists at an early stage of their research careers.

Berkeley’s new Sloan Fellows are Thomas L. Griffiths, professor of psychology and director of the Computational Cognitive Science Lab; Ulrike M. Malmendier, professor of economics; and Adam Szeidl, professor of economics.

Each will receive a two-year, $50,000 grant to pursue any line of research they choose.

Yale Honorary Degree

Robert Alter, professor of Hebrew and comparative literature, was cited by Yale University for “thoughtful and brilliant work” ranging from studies of the English and European novel to questions of tradition and modernity. Among his achievements, the citation singled out his poetic and rigorous translations and interpretations of the Hebrew Bible.

American Council of Learned Societies

History professor Brian DeLay received a Charles Ryscamp Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies. He will use the award to continue his research project, “Shoot the State: The Arms Trade and the Re-creation of the Americas, 1750-1914.”

Michael Nylan, professor of history, received a collaborative research fellowship from the ACLS. Her project, “Chang’an 26 BEC, from Dreams to Drains,” is an annotated history of one of the two greatest cities of China’s classical era. Nylan is collaborating on the project with a scholar from McGill University.

Dissertation Award

The American Comparative Literature Association chose the work of a Berkeley Ph.D. this year as the nation’s best dissertation in comparative literature. Elizabeth Young, who now teaches at Wellesley College, received ACLA’s Charles Bernheimer Prize for Best Dissertation by a Graduate Student in Comparative Literature for "The Mediated Muse: Catullan Lyricism and Roman Translation."

The award was established in 2002, and Young is Berkeley’s second winner in eight years.

Northern California Book Award

Chana Kronfeld, professor of Near Eastern Studies and Comparative Literature, received the 2010 Northern California Book Award, along with her co-translator Chana Bloch, for a translation of the poetry of Dahlia Ravikovitch. Ravikovitch was an Israeli poet and peace activist until her death in 2005.