Catharine R. Stimpson
Author and educator Catharine R. Stimpson is the director of the Fellows Division of the John D. Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Chicago, Ill.
Awards made by the prestigious fellows program, which are often referred to as "genius grants," are made to individuals doing work judged to be of extraordinary benefit to society. The five-year grants are particularly prized as recipients are allowed to spend the funds in any way they wish.
She is on leave from her position as professor at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. From 1986 to 1992, she served as dean of the Graduate School and vice president of Graduate Education.
Now the editor of a book series for the University of Chicago Press, Ms. Stimpson served as the founding editor of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. She was also the first director of the Women's Center of Barnard
College and of the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers.
The author of a novel, Class Notes, and the editor of seven books, she
has also published over 150 monographs, essays, stories and reviews in Transatlantic Review, Nation, New York Times Book Review, Critical Inquiry and boundary 2. A selection of essays, Where the Meanings Are, was published in 1988. She is currently writing a book on Gertrude Stein for the University of Chicago Press.
Professor Stimpson has lectured at approximately 300 institutions and events in the United States and abroad. She has served as chair of the New York State Council for the Humanities, the National Council for Research on Women and the Ms. magazine's Board of Scholars. In 1990, she served as president of the Modern Language Association. She is now chair of the National Advisory Committee of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and a member of the board of several educational institutions.
Professor Stimpson has been awarded honorary degrees from a number of colleges including Bates and Hamilton. She has also won Fulbright and Rockefeller Humanities fellowships.
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