The Guggenheim Fellowships for 2024 have been officially announced, and several School of the Arts alumni across various disciplines have joined the ranks of this prestigious program. These awards—which are among the most prestigious, competitive fellowships in the arts and humanities—grant recipients funding to pursue creative projects under "the freest possible conditions."
The 2024 recipients include Writing alumni Mai Der Vang ’14 and Tracy K. Smith ’97, who both received fellowships in Poetry, Thomas Beller ’92, who received a General Nonfiction fellowship, and Emma Cline ’13, whose fellowship is in European and Latin American Literature.
Several Visual Arts alumni were also awarded fellowships, including Associate Professor Nicola Lopez ’04 and Assistant Professor Adama Delphine Fawundu ’18, who each received awards in Fine Arts. Adjunct Assistant Professor Ben Hagari ’14 also received a fellowship in Film-Video.
This year, many of the fellows' projects respond directly to some of the most pressing issues of our day, including democracy and politics, identity, disability activism, machine learning, incarceration, climate change, and community.
“Humanity faces some profound existential challenges,” said Edward Hirsch, award-winning poet and president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, in a press release. “The Guggenheim Fellowship is a life-changing recognition. It’s a celebrated investment into the lives and careers of distinguished artists, scholars, scientists, writers and other cultural visionaries who are meeting these challenges head-on and generating new possibilities and pathways across the broader culture as they do so.”
Approximately 188 fellows were chosen out of a pool of 3,000 applicants. This year’s cohort was selected, following a multi-step application and rigorous peer review process, on the criteria of exceptional promise and prior career achievement. Guggenheim fellows include more than 125 Nobel laureates, members of all the national academies, and winners of prestigious prizes such as the Pulitzer, Fields Medal, National Book Award, and more.
