The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded fellowships to Professor of Geology Eugene Domack and to alumnus Henry Drewal '64. According to the Foundation, "the Fellowships are awarded to men and women who have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship." The purpose of the Guggenheim Fellowship program is to help provide Fellows with blocks of time in which they can work with as much creative freedom as possible.
Drewal, Evjue-Bascom Professor of Art History and Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, will study, "The Senses in Understandings of African art." In 2003, he was awarded a Senior Research Fulbright to the Republic of Benin for work on arts for water spirits in West Africa.
Domack will spend the six months of his fellowship continuing his research, "Testing the Snowball Earth Hypothesis by Comparison to Antarctica Marine Deposystems." He said he will be looking at the dramatic climate change that took place 600 to 750 million years ago – called "Snowball Earth."
Scientists have hotly debated the evidence provided by glacial deposits. Domack has a unique perspective on the Snowball Earth debate. He said, "I have observed and studied the sedimentary record of Antarctic glacial marine events, including the breakup of large ice shelves under climate warming." He has also conducted research on older glacial strata in Australia and has done field work on older Precambrian glacial rocks in Canada and the western U.S.
Domack is only the second Hamilton faculty member to receive a Guggenheim fellowship. Jay Reise, assistant professor of music received one in 1979-80 and spent the year composing a symphony. "Symphony No. 2" was premiered by the Syracuse Symphony during its 1980-81 season. Reise is currently the Robert Weiss Professor of Music Composition at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was established in 1925 by United States Senator Simon Guggenheim and his wife as a memorial to a son who died April 26, 1922. The Foundation offers Fellowships to further the development of scholars and artists by assisting them to engage in research in any field of knowledge and creation in any of the arts, under the freest possible conditions and irrespective of race, color, or creed.
