[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/fast.jpg” caption=”Dean of humanities Nasrin Rahimieh and music professor Susan Fast. Photo credit: Deborah McIvor”]Dean of humanities Nasrin Rahimieh and professor emeritus Donald Shepherd announced the 2001-03 recipient of the Donald Shepherd Humanities Book Prize this past Tuesday at a well-attended faculty
reception.

Susan Fast, a music professor from the School of the Arts and acting director of the Women's Studies Progam, was honoured as the winner from a field of distinguished colleagues.

Rahimieh welcomed the newest faculty members to the humanities
family and acknowledged the presence of a number of distinguished
retirees, who have continued their academic association as “Friends of the Faculty”.

Shepherd expressed his delight at the number and variety of publications nominated for the prize, and spent a great amount of time reminiscing with friends, colleagues and reviewing the
display of the many texts authored by humanities faculty members.

“As a scholar, I know the amount of work and cost involved in publishing. I am pleased to be able to offer this award for scholarly work in our faculty,” Shepherd said.

The Donald Shepherd Humanities Book Prize was created, through the
generosity of Donald Shepherd, professor emeritus, classics, to recognize the best book published by a full-time member of the faculty in a given three-year period. The eight submissions for the
2001-2003 competition were:

• Lorraine York – Rethinking Women's Collaborative Writing
• John Weaver – The Great Land Rush: The Making of the Modern World
• Peter Walmsley – Locke's Essay & The Rhetoric of Science
• Ron Granofsky – DH Lawrence & Survival: Darwinism in Fiction of the Transitional Period
• Imre Szeman – Zones of Instability: Literature, PostColonialism & the Nation
• Alison McQueen – The Rise of the Cult of Rembrandt
• Helen Ostovich, editor – Ben Jonson's Every Man Out of His Humour
• Susan Fast – In the Houses of the Holy: Led Zeppelin and the Power of Rock Music

The range and number of books submitted to this competition was impressive, attesting to the depth and breadth of scholarship in the humanities faculty.

The members of the adjudication committee found it very difficult to
choose from among the remarkable array of offerings. “I am very proud of these submissions. It is telling indeed that we have so many fine academics who produce excellent scholarly writings,” said Rahimieh.

An excerpt of the committee's decision read, “Susan Fast's original and engaging study, In the Houses of the Holy: Led Zeppelin and the Power of Rock Music, combines detailed musicological
analysis with a wide-ranging inquiry into the band's popularity with its fans. Fast's book is at once sympathetic and yet sensitive
to issues of gender, sexuality, and cultural appropriation that have been raised about the band's music and performances. As reviewers have noted, it breaks new ground in the study of popular music and, in our opinion, thoroughly merits the award of the 2001-03 Shepherd Book Prize.”

The adjuducation panel consisted of Daniel Coleman (English), Nicholas Griffin (philosophy), and Bernice Kaczynski (history).

The Shepherd Prize will next be awarded in the fall of 2007, for the period Jan. 1, 2004 through Dec. 31, 2006. Publications by the humanities faculty members, including In the Houses of the
Holy: Led Zeppelin and the Power of Rock Music, from Oxford University Press, are available for purchase at Titles Bookstore.