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Fred Knubel, Director of Public Information
FOR USE UPON RECEIPT: June 20, 1996

Two Writing Professors Named MacArthur Fellows

Rebecca Goldstein and Richard Howard, both adjunct professors in the Writing Division of the School of the Arts, were among 21 new MacArthur Fellows announced on June 18.

Ms. Goldstein, 46, a novelist and philosopher, will receive $285,000, and Mr. Howard, 66, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and translator, critic and editor, will receive $375,000. Awarded since 1981 by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the fellowships, known popularly as "genius grants" because they recognize exceptionally creative individuals in all fields, are unrestricted "no strings attached" awards given over a five-year period. The amount of the grant is based on the age of the recipient.

A graduate of Barnard College (1972) and the holder of a Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University (1976), Ms. Goldstein taught in the philosophy department at Barnard for 10 years, from 1976 to 1986. She has been adjunct assistant professor of writing in the School of the Arts since 1994. Described as a novelist of ideas, she "dramatizes the concerns of philosophy in her novels and short stories without sacrificing the integrity of the philosophical questions she explores or the demands of imaginative story telling," said the MacArthur Foundation in its announcement. Her works include The Mind-Body Problem (1983), The Late-Summer Passion of a Woman of Mind (1989), The Dark Sister (1991), Strange Attractors (1993) and Mazel (1995). She lives in Highland Park, N.J.

Mr. Howard, adjunct professor of writing at the School this spring, earned his B.A. (1951) and M.A. (1952) from Columbia. He is professor of English in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston and the poetry editor of The Paris Review. His poetry explores "the privations and privileges of artistic sensibility," said the Foundation, his critical essays and reviews range over art, history, photography, sexual politics and literature, and his "many translations of French works are invaluable." He has published 10 books of poetry, including Untitled Subjects, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1969 and his most recent, Like Most Revelations: New Poems (1994).

Both fellowship winners will teach at Columbia again in the '96-'97 academic year, said Richard Locke, professor of writing and chairman of the Writing Division. Ms. Goldstein will be adjunct associate professor.

This year's awards brings to 17 the number of individuals who have received fellowships while they were Columbia faculty members.

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