Crossing Sonic Borderlands
Werewolf books and movies that make us more human
A full moon rises. A howl pierces the air. At the University of Chicago, a new course explores how scary stories of wolfish transformations can spring from our deepest anxieties about being human.
In “The Werewolf in Literature and Film,” a new College course offered by the Department of Comparative Literature, students explore the fuzzy boundaries between animal and human across time and media. The class is taught by seventh-year doctoral candidate David Delbar, a self-described “amateur lycanthropologist.”
Lessons from the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
For four years, Prof. Jacqueline Stewart, AM’93, PhD’99, has applied her knowledge of film as a scholar and archivist to educate a wider audience. She served first as the chief artistic and programming officer and then as director and president at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. This fall, she returns to UChicago to teach and work on her own scholarship.
During her time in Los Angeles, this specialist in Black and silent cinema continued to serve as a host for Turner Classic Movies—a tenure that began in September 2019. Adding to her laurels, Stewart received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2021.
UChicago philosopher to receive the prestigious Luhmann Science Prize
Prof. Robert B. Pippin’s wide-ranging scholarship encompasses studies of 19th-century philosophers like Hegel and Kant to 20th-century filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford. For his contributions to the political, moral, and aesthetic self-image of society, Pippin will receive the Luhmann Science Prize from the Sparkasse Bielefeld Foundation on Dec. 9 in the Bielefeld Wissenswerkstadt, Germany. The Prize includes more than prestige; prize winners receive €25,000.
“Pippin is an outstanding American interpreter of the philosophy of German Idealism,” said Prof. Angelika Epple, Rector of Bielefeld University and chair for the jury of the Luhmann Science Prize.
UChicago writer Ling Ma received 2024 MacArthur Fellowship
Ling Ma, AB’05, an award-winning University of Chicago fiction writer renowned for prose that highlights the similarities between the fantastical and the everyday, has been awarded a 2024 MacArthur Fellowship.
Given each year by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the prestigious grants recognize individuals from across disciplines who show “exceptional originality in and dedication to their creative pursuits.” Fellows receive $800,000 stipends to use as they see fit.
“I am amazed that strangers who have read my work decided to nominate or recommend my fiction,” Ma said. “For someone who spends most of their days alone, that's pretty unbelievable.”
