Princeton University. Honors Faculty Members Receiving Emeritus Status. May 2009

Transcription

1 Princeton University Honors Faculty Members Receiving Emeritus Status May 2009

2 The biographical sketches were written by colleagues in the epartments of those honore. Copyright 2009 by The Trustees of Princeton University

3 Contents Faculty Members Receiving Emeritus Status Marguerite Ann Browning Page 1 Stanley Alan Corngol Page 4 Robert Peter Ebert Page 7 Walter Hermann Hinerer Page 9 Peter Grant Jeffery Page 11 Austin Newton Page 14 Robert Anthony Pascal Jr. Page 16 Michael Rothschil Page 18 Stuart Carl Schwartz Page 21 James L. Seawright Page 24 T. Leslie Shear Jr. Page 26 Yoshiaki Shimizu Page 28

4 Marguerite Ann Browning Marguerite Ann Browning, a theoretical linguist who has serve as master of Wilson College since 2004, is leaving Princeton to become vice presient for stuent life an ean of stuents at Harvey Mu College, a science an engineering college in the Claremont University consortium. Maggie s move from professor to stuent-affairs ean is only the latest twist in a career as inspiring as it is improbable. Born in 1952 in central Texas, Maggie was the first chil of a well-known circus rummer an ban leaer, Bill Boom Boom Browning, an his wife, Martha. Maggie s early fascination with science an math gave way in her teens to a passionate interest in theater, which was nurture by her extraorinary high-school rama teacher in Ohio, where the family ha move. Although Maggie in t see college in her future, the rama teacher i, an was instrumental in helping her gain amission to Denison University. After stuying ramatic arts for two years, Maggie roppe out of college to join Stage One, a Boston-base experimental theater group influence by the revolutionary Polish irector Jerzy Grotowski. In her late twenties, Maggie ecie to complete her unergrauate egree at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where she hope to stuy American Sign Language in preparation for a career working with eaf people. As it happene, UMass Boston in t offer ASL courses, so Maggie took a class in the closest subject she coul fin linguistics. She fell in love with the formal nature of the inquiry an became fascinate by the structure of language an the theory of universal grammar. It wasn t long before she was taking classes at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Noam Chomsky, who eventually became her issertation aviser. 1

5 Maggie earne her B.A. summa cum laue from UMass Boston in 1982, the first in her family to grauate from college. She immeiately matriculate at MIT as an Ia Green Fellow ( ) an a Linguistics Department Research Fellow ( ). While a grauate stuent, she also hel a prestigious four-year National Science Founation Fellowship ( ). After receiving her Ph.D. in 1987, she spent a year teaching at MIT, then two years serving as assistant professor of linguistics at the University of Texas Austin. In 1990, she was recruite by Princeton to join the Program in Linguistics an in 1996 was aware tenure. Maggie s work in linguistics has focuse primarily on theories of syntactic movement the rules that govern how the unerlying structure of a sentence (e.g., John hit the ball) can be transforme (The ball was hit by John). By investigating a particular phenomenon in language known as null operator constructions, Maggie has been able to illuminate the nature of syntactic movement, the constraints that govern it, an the structures it creates. Her research has appeare as a monograph, Null Operator Constructions, an in articles publishe in the major journal of the fiel, Linguistic Inquiry, as well as in many other journals an eite collections. In recent years, Maggie has reinvente herself as a historian of linguistics, focusing on the new approach to the stuy of language that emerge at the beginning of the 20th century, when traitional Ino-European linguistics an the anthropology of Franz Boas converge in the persons of Ewar Sapir an Leonar Bloomfiel. As part of a new generation of anthropological linguists, Sapir an Bloomfiel took Ino-European methoology into the fiel an applie it for the first time to the inigenous languages of the Americas. In the process, they create American structural linguistics, a iscipline that quickly separate itself from anthropology an ultimately forme the basis for contemporary linguistic theory. Maggie s project, base on archival 2

6 research, tells the story of the birth of American structural linguistics through the eyes of the key people involve not only Boas, Sapir, an Bloomfiel, but also the mostly forgotten Native Americans who were their co-workers. A fervent avocate for linguistics at Princeton, Maggie serve as irector of the Program in Linguistics from 1997 to In this role, she expane the number an variety of courses offere, booste enrollments, increase the number of certificates aware annually, an in general raise the profile of the program. She also invite visiting professors to teach courses such as Linguistics an Race an Linguistics an Law, an she create an taught the University s first laboratory-base linguistics course, Linguistics an Language Acquisition, a popular class that satisfie the University s requirement in science an technology. Finally, in conjunction with the then-chair of the Department of Slavic Languages an Literatures, Maggie institute a successful joint Ph.D. program in Slavic an theoretical linguistics. In 2004, Maggie was appointe master of Wilson College, where she has istinguishe herself by cultivating the college s reputation for the arts an by vigorously promoting stuent-le initiatives. For example, she brought a group of young Native American artists to Wilson for a week in resience; the highlight of their stay was a performance piece involving live music, skateboaring, spoken-wor poetry, an the graffiti-style painting of a 30-foot mural. Uner Maggie s mentorship, Wilson stuents create an arts stuio an regularly sponsor exhibits in Wilcox Commons. They also hol an annual Mr. Wilson College pageant an occasionally prouce original plays. In 2005, Maggie guie a group of freshmen an sophomores to form the BlackBox, a hip-hop-flavore, alcohol-free ance club. For the future, we wish Maggie the best of luck as she embarks on the next stage of her increible journey. 3