Features

Peter Benson Miller began his three-year tenure as the Andrew Heiskell Arts Director on August 1.

This spring, the American Academy began a new chapter in its contribution to advanced studies in the humanities.

Glenn Murcutt is the William A. Bernoudy Architect in Residence and works as a sole practitioner producing residential and institutional buildings throughout Australia from his home in Sydney. He is an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects and has been the recipient of the Alvar Aalto Medal, the Pritzker Prize, and the AIA Gold Medal.

Paul Moravec, FAAR’85, is the current Paul Fromm Composer in Residence, a prolific composer and University Professor of Music at Adelphi University.

Administration, staff, Fellows and friends gathered on the beautiful backyard terrace of the Villa Chiaraviglio last week to raise a glass and bid the fondest of farewells to Andrew Heiskell Arts Director Karl Kirchwey, FAAR’95.

The 2012–13 Walks and Talks at the American Academy are one of the moments of the Academy experience that not only set it apart from its peer institutions, but also form the intellectual basis for shared discussions between artists and scholars.

During the final week of May, the American Academy in Rome celebrated its 2013 Rome Prize Fellows with three consecutive public events.

Karen M'Closkey is the winner of the Garden Club of America Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.

On Monday, May 27, 2013, the American Academy in Rome celebrated the internationally renowned director and screenwriter, Maestro Bernardo Bertolucci, by awarding him the McKim Medal in honor of his significant accomplishments and contributions to cinema.

Christia Mercer is an American Academy in Rome Scholar in Residence and the Gustave M. Berne Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University.

Last Tuesday evening at the Villa Aurelia, American Academy in Rome Director Christopher S. Celenza, FAAR’94, sat down with Harvard University Professor Jill Lepore and an international audience to consider “Arms in America: Gun Violence in the United States in Global Perspective” for the seventh installment of the Academy’s series of Conversations That Matter.

An enthusiastic crowd gathered last Thursday in the cortile of the American Academy in Rome to hear Irish Nobel Laureate and William B. Hart Poet-in-Residence Seamus Heaney read a selection of poems illuminating the wide span of his distinguished career.

Last Thursday and Friday evenings saw the unfolding of a series of readings, conversations, and exchanges among scholars and writers of various disciplines who share a common interest in the Roman poet Ovid.

Wednesday evening saw the opening of AAR Gallery’s new exhibition, Stone From Delphi, which features thirty-five watercolors by the American artist and AAR Arts Advisor Wendy Artin and poems by the Irish Nobel Laureate and William B. Hart Poet-in-Residence Seamus Heaney.

Jessica Fisher is the winner of the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize in Literature, a gift of the Drue Heinz Trust/American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Holloway Postdoctoral Fellow in Poetry and Poetics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Michael J.B. Allen studied at Wadham College Oxford and the University of Michigan before joining the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles.

Steven J. R. Ellis is the winner of the National Endowment for the Humanities/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Post-Doctoral Rome Prize in Ancient Studies and an assistant professor in the Department of Classics at the University of Cincinnati.

Nari Ward is the winner of the Chuck Close Rome Prize in Visual Arts and an Artist in New York.

Bruce Babbitt is the James Marston Fitch Historic Preservationist in Residence at the American Academy in Rome and a planning consultant in Washington, DC.

Elizabeth Kaiser Schulte is the winner of the Booth Family Rome Prize in Historic Preservation and Conservation and the Owner/Chief Conservator of Elizabeth Kaiser Schulte Conservation of Art and Historic Artifacts on Paper in Atlanta, GA.