James Shapiro“>

Probably not what their award will look like.

Bwog would like to extend its heartiest congratulations to this year’s recipients of the Lionel Trilling and Mark Van Doren Awards, bestowed upon exceptional professors each year for writing a fancy book and being dedicated to “humanity, devotion to truth and inspiring leadership,” respectively. This year, the Trilling Award goes to the English department’s James Shapiro, CC ’77, for his book Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?, and the Van Doren award goes to Holger Klein, Professor of Art History and reputed for his “pedagogical greatness.” They’re both silver nuggets on CULPA, and you should probably take a class with them before you die I mean graduate.

The awards ceremony is being held tonight from 6:30 to 8:30pm in the Faculty Room of Low. Check it out—for seniors, this might be one of your last chances to rub elbows with the rich and famous intelligent and well-read. You know, unless you’re, like, going to grad school or something.

Super Bowl Trophy via Wikimedia Commons

Despite previous statements to the contrary, the Academic Affairs Committee has invited the entirety of Columbia College to tonight’s Academic Awards Ceremony. The ceremony will honor Lionel Trilling and Mark van Doren Award winners, Joseph Massad and Andrew Nathan, respectively. 

The reception starts tonight in Low at 6 PM with the ceremony to follow. We’re assuming the earlier proclamation of a “business-smart” dress code still applies.

For those of you stuck in Butler (or those who only have “casual-smart” or “business-mildly intelligent” wardrobes), check back for Bwog’s coverage of the event.

The winners of the 2008 Lionel Trilling and Mark van Doren Awards have been announced. As Bwog reported earlier, Associate Professor Joseph Massad has been awarded the former, while Andrew Nathan, Political Science Department Chairman, has been awarded the latter for his “humanity, devotion to truth, and and inspiring leadership,” according to the press release. 

The ceremony will be held on Wednesday, May 7th in Low. As all political science undergrads received an email with instructions to RSVP, Bwog believes the event is probably open to the rest of the student body as well. Interested parties can RSVP to academicawards@gmail.com.

According to Ian Corey-Boulet, the co-chair of the CC Academic Awards Committee, “For space reasons, the event is open to faculty from the political science and MEALAC departments (as well as all department chairs), various members of the University administration, political science and MEALAC majors, and the winners’ friends and family.” Also, if you fall into any of these categories and plan on attending the ceremony, according to the AAC press release, the dress code is “business-smart.”

Today Associate Professor Joseph Massad‘s Desiring Arabs has been awarded the 2008 Lionel Trilling Award, according an email sent to the MEALAC listserv. The award is given each year to honor the book authored by a Columbia faculty member “that is deemed to best exhibit the standards of intellect and scholarship found in Lionel Trilling’s work,” the prize’s website says.

Desiring Arabs is an intellectual history of the last 200 years of the Arabic world that focuses on Arab sexuality and Western interpretations of Arab sexuality. Massad—as well as the book itself—has been the at the center of much heated Middle Eastern controversy over the last four years. Massad was also one of the subjects criticized by the David Project-funded documentary Columbia Unbecoming.

Winners of the Trilling Award—as well as the Mark Van Doren Award—are selected by the Columbia College Student Council and the Academic Awards Committee. A Bwog tipster with a friend involved in the latter explains that AACers have been told to remain mum, so other than the fluke MEALAC email, there have been no announcements about the winner.

According to the Columbia College website, the awards ceremony will be held on May 8th (although half the dates on the website say “2007″ and the others say “2008″, this year, May 8th is on a Thursday.)

- JNW

You missed…

- Awards! The Kings Crown awards went out, landing in the inboxes (and on the resumes) of meritorious students. But perhaps more importantly, the undergraduate Academic Awards Committee made their picks: the Lionel Trilling Award, for the best book published by a member of the Columbia faculty in the calendar year; and the Mark Van Doren Teaching Award, for excellence in teaching. This year, the Trilling went to Sheldon Pollock‘s The Language of the Gods in the World of Men, a history of Sanskrit, and Samuel Moyn landed the Van Doren. Props to both.

- The V-Show trailer! Low-tech, high anticipation. Don’t forget to buy tickets–they’re going fast.

- Nostalgia! Bob Feldman et al reminisce about the good old days at Columbia, when “protest” meant “take over buildings and get dragged out by the police.” 

- Random overheards! Girl on cell phone in Lerner: “Well, tell him he should take the stick out of his ass and stick it up his nose!”

Also, coming up…

- Tomorrow, according to several breathless listserv announcements, President Bush will be in Harlem at the Village Academy, 242 W. 144th st. (between 7th and 8th). A bunch of activisty types are heading up there; Bwog hopes they won’t be disappointed.

- Wednesday is Administrative Professional Appreciation Day. Low-level bureaucrats will be awaiting their chocolates and bouquets.