UNLV English professor John Bowers has been awarded a prestigious fellowship by the Guggenheim Foundation.
Bowers, who is an expert on Medieval literature, will use the fellowship to work on his next book while on sabbatical from UNLV during the 2000-01 academic year. The book will explore the early potential development of English literature.
"This is a very prestigious award for Dr. Bowers," said Jim Frey, dean of UNLV's College of Liberal Arts, which houses the English department. "He is one of UNLV's top scholars and teachers whose work is widely known for its high quality. This is a well-deserved award."
Bowers said of being selected for the honor, "The Guggenheim Fellowship is widely considered the pinnacle of academic achievement. Winning this renowned prize proves that UNLV is an excellent place to accomplish first-rate scholarly work, advance an academic career, and earn distinction on a national level."
And on the international level, Bowers recently learned that his work is being used in a graduate seminar at Oxford University.
"My colleague, novelist Douglas Unger, won a Guggenheim before arriving at UNLV. Distinguished Professor Maurice Finocchiaro of the philosophy department is the only other professor on campus who has won a Guggenheim, to the best of my knowledge. I am very proud to join this elite group of winners truly the stars of the UNLV community," Bowers said.
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, which was established in 1925, offers fellowships to further the development of scholars and artists by assisting them in research in any field of knowledge and creation in any of the arts. The fellowships are awarded to men and women who have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or outstanding creative ability in the arts.
In 1999, the foundation awarded 179 U.S. and Canadian fellowships totaling nearly $6.1 million. There were 2,785 applicants.
A former Rhodes Scholar who has taught at Caltech and Princeton, Bowers said he expects to spend most of his sabbatical year in Las Vegas working on the book but will spend some time in both England and California doing research.
Bowers, who has chaired UNLV's English department for three years, is the sole author of the books, The Crisis of Will in Piers Plowman and The Canterbury Tales: Fifteenth-Century Continuations and Additions. A third book, The Politics of 'Pearl': Court Poetry in the Age of Richard II, is scheduled for publication by Boydell & Brewer later this year. Additionally, he has written numerous scholarly articles on authors from St. Augustine to Shakespeare.
During the 1992-93 academic year, Bowers was the recipient of a year-long National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship.
He has received many university awards during his 12 years at UNLV, including outstanding teacher in the English department, the Rita Deanin Abbey teacher of the year award in the College of Liberal Arts, and the UNLV Alumni Association outstanding teacher of English. In 1999, he received the Nevada Regents' teaching award.
