Ann Blair Awarded Radcliffe Junior Faculty Fellowship at Bunting

Ann Blair, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, has been awarded the fourth Radcliffe Junior Faculty Fellowship at the Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College.

Blair, who teaches courses in European intellectual and cultural history, and conducts tutorials in the history and literature concentration, will spend the 1998-99 academic year studying the evolution of the encyclopedia from the mid-16th century to 1750.

"I am honored to award this fellowship to Ann Blair," said Radcliffe College President Linda S. Wilson. "We often think of ourselves as living in the world's 'information age.' However, Ann's work demonstrates that compiling and organizing important knowledge has been with us for centuries."

Blair's project is titled "The Development of the Encyclopedic Reference Work in Early Modern Europe."

Today's encyclopedic form is largely based on the encyclopedia of Diderot and d'Alembert, which was first published in 1750. Blair's research will focus on the diversity of encyclopedic forms that preceded the 1750 publication. Just as we are experiencing an explosion of knowledge and information today, Europeans in the wake of the Renaissance were struggling to compile, manage, and integrate a massive influx of new information.

Blair became an assistant professor of history and of history and literature at Harvard in 1996. Prior to that, she was an assistant professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, from 1993 to 1996, and a lecturer in history of science at Harvard from 1991 to 1993.

Blair earned master's and doctoral degrees in history from Princeton University, and a master's in history and philosophy of science from Cambridge University. In 1984, she graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in history and science from Harvard College.

The Radcliffe Junior Faculty Fellowship was established in 1995 for junior women on the faculty at Harvard. Each year, Radcliffe invites special contributions from alumnae and friends to support the investment toward tenure parity for women academics.

Fellowships at the Bunting Institute provide a concentrated research and work environment as well as access to extraordinary scholarly resources, stimulating colleagues, professional interchange, and an atmosphere of mutual support among talented women of diverse backgrounds and disciplines.