Fall 2011 | Issue 21

N14 | Life & Letters | News from the Hans Arnhold Center
to complete a book of new and
collected poems. Sleigh aims in
his work for a music of clashing
tones, a music that can express
the difference between what one
ought to feel and what one really
does feel. To do that in poetry,
he argues, a person has to keep
himself open to multiple frequencies,
so that whatever ethical
statement you arrive at itself
arrives as part of the texture of
the poem. The language relieves
the poet of having to stand guard
over his own opinions and convictions,
gives him access to reaches
of thought and feeling perhaps
otherwise not imagined. Such
a stance, Sleigh avers, is risky,
unpredictable, and not always
easy to reconcile with day-to-day
political, emotional, or intellectual
entanglements.
Sleigh is a Distinguished
Professor at Hunter College, as
well as a poet, dramatist, and
essayist. He has published eight
books of poetry, a translation of
Euripides’ Herakles, and a book
of essays. Five of his plays have
been produced. He has won
numerous awards, including
the 2008 Kingsley Tufts Poetry
Award, the John Updike Award
and an Academy Award from
the American Academy of Arts
and Letters, and grants from
the National Endowment for
the Arts and the Guggenheim
Foundation. He currently
serves as director of Hunter
College’s Master of Fine Arts
Program in Creative Writing
and has previously taught at
Dartmouth College, University
of Iowa, University of California
at Berkley, Johns Hopkins
University, and New York
University. Sleigh’s poems frequently
appear in the New Yorker
and other publications.
JOHN VAN ENGEN
A devoted medievalist, John
Van Engen describes himself as
an “anchor who draws people
into the past.” During his time
at the Academy, the Nina Maria
Gorrissen Fellow plans to forge
a new synthetic history of the
cultural and social dynamics at
work in twelfth-century Europe,
which focuses on a select number
of forces cutting across all
sectors of society and culture,
and seeks to reinterpret the
larger European narrative. The
twelfth century, he argues, is
a teleological hinge-point that
exposes the longer narrative of
medieval Europe and the development
of local cultures into
an increasingly pan-European
culture. It fueled innovations
in communication across
social and cultural divides, and
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introduced dynamic forces that
shaped the century: reason and
revolt, reading and romance.
Van Engen, a professor at the
University of Notre Dame, is
a noted scholar of the cultural,
intellectual, and religious history
of the European Middle Ages.
For twelve years (1986–98)
Van Engen served as director of
Notre Dame’s Medieval Institute.
He was a fellow at the Institute
for Advanced Study in Princeton
in 1993–94 (and again in the
fall of 1998), a fellow at the
Shelby Cullom Davis Center at
Princeton University in 1999–
2000, and, in the fall of 2002,
a visiting professor at Harvard
University. Van Engen is also a
fellow of the Medieval Academy
of America, a corresponding
member of the Monumenta
Germaniae Historica, and, in
2007–08, served as president of
the American Society of Church
History. Beyond editing scholarly
symposia, he translates
medieval texts from Latin and
Middle Dutch, and is currently
working on a large edition of
core historical materials from
a movement called the Devotio
Moderna. His book Sisters and
Brothers of the Common Life
(University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2008) has been awarded
three major prizes.
This spring welcomes another outstanding class of fellows to the Hans Arnhold Center
Distinguished visitors
NIALL FERGUSON
The Laurence A. Tisch Professor
of History at Harvard University
and Academy trustee will give a
lecture based on his recent book,
Civilization: The West and the Rest.
JACK A. GOLDSTONE
The Virginia E. and John T. Hazel
Professor of Public Policy at
George Mason University’s School
of Public Policy will expound on
“Global Trends in the Quality of
Governance and Democracy.”
MICHAEL GREENSTONE
The 3M Professor of
Environmental Economics
at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology will delve into the
challenges of climate change
and three possible responses:
mitigation, adaptation, and
geo-engineering.
ROBERT C. POST
The dean and Sol & Lillian
Goldman Professor of Law at Yale
University will explore which
forms of speech deserve legal protection
in modern democracies.
PETER SELIGMANN
The chairman of the board and ceo
of Conservation International will
discuss the economics of nature.
Karen J. Alter, a professor
of political science
and law at Northwestern
University, will examine the
growing power of international
courts; Charles Bright,
Arthur J. Thurnau Professor
of History at the University of
Michigan, and Michael Geyer,
Samuel N. Harper Professor at
the University of Chicago, will
look back at the global condition
in the twentieth century; Lel and
de la Durantaye, Gardner
Cowles Associate Professor of
English at Harvard University,
will continue scrutinizing
Samuel Beckett’s writing for
insights into the writer’s “world
and work”; Richard Deming,
a lecturer in English at Yale
University, will pen lines of poetry
and contemplate the nature
of the ordinary in art, film, and
philosophy; Avery Gordon,
a professor of sociology at the
University of California, Santa
Barbara, will begin her book,
Breitenau: A Notebook; Annie
Gosfield, a New York-based
composer, will channel Berlin’s
creative verve with her Messages
Personnels; Leslie Hewitt, an
artist, also hailing from New York,
will devote herself to new work;
Peter Lindseth, Olimpiad S.
Ioffe Professor of International
and Comparative Law at the
University of Connecticut School
of Law, will consider democracy
and administration in the
North Atlantic World; Inga
Markovits, the Friends of
Jamail Regents Chair in Law at
the University of Texas School
of Law, will dig into Berlin’s
recent history as she researches
the Humboldt University’s law
faculty under gdr rule; K aren
Russell, a visiting professor
of creative writing at Bryn
Mawr College, will return to
short fiction; and M. Norton
Wise, Distinguished Professor
of History at the University of
California, Los Angeles, will
peer through “gardens of steam”
to examine industrial culture’s
intersection with the Berlin
landscape.