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Fourteen faculty named Cabot Fellows

Students stream past the John Harvard Statue in Harvard Yard at Harvard University.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

3 min read

Fourteen professors in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences have been named Walter Channing Cabot Fellows. The annual awards honor faculty members for their contributions to the advancement of scholarship in the fields of literature, history, or art.

The Cabot Fellowships are traditionally given to professors in the arts and humanities, along with some social science departments. This year’s recipients have a wide array of academic pursuits, including East Asian literature and civilizations, government, and African and African American studies.

The 2024 honorees are:

Martin Puchner, Byron and Anita Wien Professor of Drama and of English and Comparative Literature; “Culture: The Story of Us, from Cave Art to K-Pop,” (New York: Norton, 2023)

Jie Li, professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations; “Cinematic Guerrillas: Propaganda, Projectionists, and Audiences in Socialist China,” (Columbia University Press, 2023)

Ryūichi Abé, Reischauer Institute Professor of Japanese Religions; “Hyōden Ryōkan – Wakehedate no nai yo wo kiraku kotsujikisō (Ryōkan, A Biography: the beggar monk who created a world without divisiveness),” (Kyoto: Mineruva shobō, 2023)

Peter Der Manuelian, Barbara Bell Professor of Egyptology; “Walking among Pharaohs: George Reisner and the Dawn of Modern Egyptology,” (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023)

Tracy K. Smith, professor of English and of African and African American Studies; “To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul,” (New York: A.A. Knopf, 2023)

Naomi Weiss, professor of the Classics; “Seeing Theater: The Phenomenology of Classical Greek Drama,” (Oakland: University of California Press, 2023)

John Hamilton, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Comparative Literature and of Germanic Languages and Literatures; “France/Kafka: An Author in Theory,” (New York: Bloomsbury, 2023)

Daniel Ziblatt, Eaton Professor of the Science of Government; co-author “Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point,” (New York: Crown, 2023)

Steven Levitsky, David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies; co-author “Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point,” (New York: Crown, 2023)

Emmanuel Akyeampong, Ellen Gurney Professor History and of African and African American Studies; “Independent Africa: The First Generation of Nation Builders,” (Indiana University Press, 2023)

Ya-Wen Lei, professor of sociology; “The Gilded Cage; Technology, Development, and State Capitalism in China,” (Princeton University Press, 2023)

Dustin Tingley, professor of government; co-author “Uncertain Futures: How to Unlock the Climate Impasse,” (Cambridge University Press, 2023)

Derek Penslar, William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History; “Zionism: An Emotional State,” (Rutgers University Press, 2023)

Christina Ciocca Eller, assistant professor of sociology and social studies; “What Makes a Quality College? Reexamining the Equalizing Potential of Higher Education in the United States,” (American Journal of Sociology, Volume 129, Number 3, November 2023)