A Vanderbilt University professor whose expertise is medieval and Renaissance European history has been named a 2010 Fellow by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation .
William Caferro , a professor of history, is among 180 recipients in the United States and Canada selected for the highly coveted fellowship. Artists, scholars and scientists in all fields are eligible to apply for the fellowships, which are awarded on the basis of impressive achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment. This year’s recipients were chosen from a group of more than 3,000 applicants.
Caferro will use the funding to complete a book project on the intersection of war, culture and economy in late medieval and Renaissance Italy, which was during the time of the Black Death. The research represents the culmination of his many years of work in Italian archives, he said.
“As an economic historian, I look at the Italian economy of the 14th and 15th centuries and try to understand what aspects of that economy would fall under the category of Renaissance,” he said. It’s also very important to me to look at the impact of violence and war on society in Italy at that time.”
Caferro’s other books include Mercenary Companies and the Decline of Siena (Johns Hopkins, 1998) and J ohn Hawkwood, English Mercenary in Fourteenth Century Italy (Johns Hopkins, 2006), which won the Otto Grundler Prize in 2008 as the best book on medieval studies. His most recent book, Contesting the Renaissance (Blackwell, 2010), explores the meaning and use of the term “Renaissance” in historical writings.
Caferro teaches a variety of courses in European history, including upper-level courses in pre-modern European economic history and 14th century English literature and history. He received his doctorate from Yale University and is a previous recipient of the Madison Sarratt Prize for Excellence in Teaching at Vanderbilt.
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by U.S. Senator Simon Guggenheim and his wife as a memorial to a son who had passed away earlier.
In 2008 Michael Bess, the Chancellor’s Professor of History; and Barbara Hahn, Distinguished Professor of History; were honored with Guggenheim Fellowships. Other previous recipients from Vanderbilt have included Ruth Rogaski, associate professor of history; Jay Clayton, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English; Paul Freedman, former professor of history; John Wikswo, the Gordon A. Cain University Professor; Mark Jarman, the Centennial Professor of English; and Matthew Ramsey, associate professor of history.
Media contact: Ann Marie Deer Owens, (615) 322-NEWS
annmarie.owens@vanderbilt.edu