posted on Jan. 23: Faculty of Humanities celebrates a library’s worth of authors

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Humanities.Shepherdprize.jpg”]The Faculty of Humanities gathered recently to celebrate the notable achievements of Faculty members who published books in 2000-01, and to acknowledge the incredible amount of dedication, energy, and hard work which the production of those books represents.

Between them, humanities professors have produced a veritable library during the past two years, on subjects ranging from the Austrian novel, to theoretical philosophy; from the art of Sienna, to the 1954 coup in Guatemala; from the health of children in war zones, to the linguistic representations of culture.

The occasion was also used to mark the special achievements of Katherine Dunbabin of classics, and Harvey Levenstein of history, who were joint recipients of the Donald Shepherd Humanities Book Prize.

The prize is awarded to the best book published by a full-time member of the Faculty in a given three-year period (in this case 1998-2000).

Speaking for the judging committee, Lorraine York of English warmly congratulated Dunbabin on her “painstakingly documented…and lavishly illustrated authoritative work, Mosaics of the Greek
and Roman World,” citing one reviewer who described the book as “a masterpiece of visual,
historical technical and social analysis.”

Levenstein's Seductive Journey: American Tourists in
France from Jefferson to the Jazz Age, is, said York, “a superbly researched, well-written account
of American tourism in France, that draws upon a rich variety of documents.”

While never masking the serious purpose behind his study, it was noted by one reviewer, that Levenstein “has accomplished the nearly impossible – making scholarly research readable and fun.”

Prize Winners: (L-R) Harvey Levenstein, humanities dean Daniel Woolf, Katherine Dunbabin, Lorraine York.