What does a pandemic mean for the arts?
The COVID-19 crisis has forced the widespread closures of theaters, concert halls and other cultural institutions, across the United States and beyond. Even the venues that manage to survive a prolonged shutdown might reemerge in a very different world—one that could dramatically reshape interactions between performers and audiences.
Three University of Chicago scholars have been elected to the American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in the United States.
Profs. Sidney Nagel, David Tracy and David Wellbery are among the 34 new members honored this year from a wide variety of academic disciplines. Announced May 5, the 2020 class also includes two UChicago alumni: current Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, AM’77, PhD’87; and renowned primatologist Jeanne Altmann, PhD’79.
Six members of the University of Chicago faculty have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies. They include Profs. Joy Bergelson, Maud Ellmann, Giulia Galli, William Howell, André Neves and Alexander Razborov.
These scholars have all conducted groundbreaking research in their fields, from predicting the behavior of molecules to examining U.S. presidential power to creating the foundations of new algorithms. They join the 2020 class of 276 individuals, announced April 23, which includes artists, scholars, scientists, and leaders in the public, non-profit, and private sectors.
For University of Chicago philosopher Agnes Callard, becoming someone is an extended learning process—a project of self-transformation that hinges not on specific rational decisions, but on aspiring to new values.
She introduced that idea in Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming, a 2018 book that one reviewer called “deep and broad in its philosophical reach.” That reviewer was Laurie Paul, the Yale University scholar with whom Callard now shares the 2020 Lebowitz Prize, awarded in recognition of outstanding achievement in the field of philosophy.