Last modified: Thursday, May 1, 2008
IU doctoral student Susan A. Curry receives Rome Prize
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 1, 2007
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Susan A. Curry, an Indiana University doctoral student in the Department of Classical Studies, has been awarded the 2008 Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize in the 112th Rome Prize Competition. She will receive a stipend, a study or studio, and room and board to study at the American Academy in Rome, where she will take up residence this fall.
Susan Curry
While in Rome, Curry, from Blooming Glen, Pa., will study the images of animals and sites where humans encountered animals as she investigates the history of human-animal relationships and the boundaries between humans and other animals. The work will inform her dissertation, "Human Identities and Animal Others in the Second Century C.E."
"The art of the Second Century C.E. is rich in images of animals that are both reflections of actual human encounters with non-human animals and projections of what humans thought about animals," explained Curry. "My dissertation explores the ways human animals in the Second Century C.E. conceptualized non-human animals and used animals as 'others' against which to posit human identities."
Curry earned a master's degree in modern German culture from IU. She received her bachelor's in German from Grinnell College and also has a master's in classics from the University of Kansas.
The Rome Prize is awarded annually through an open competition that is juried by leading artists and scholars in the fellowship fields. Areas of study for artists include architecture, landscape architecture, design, historic preservation and conservation, literature, musical composition and visual arts. For scholars, fellowship areas include ancient, medieval, renaissance and early modern or modern Italian studies.
Established in 1894 and chartered by an Act of Congress in 1905, the American Academy in Rome is a center that sustains independent artistic pursuits and humanistic studies. It is situated on the Janiculum, the highest hill within the walls of Rome. Each year, through a national competition, the Rome Prize is awarded to up to 30 emerging artists and scholars.
For more information on the American Academy in Rome, visit www.aarome.org.
