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Henry Luce Senior Fellowship
Honoring the American magazine publisher, the Henry Luce Senior fellowship has been awarded annually since 1996. Henry Luce built a publishing empire including Time, Fortune, and Life magazines, becoming one of the most powerful figures in the history of American journalism. Time sought to present news in narrative form and stressed world events, an area that Luce believed was neglected in American newspapers and magazines. Publications frequently utilized library research materials to make stories and articles more complete.
The Henry Luce Senior fellowship was endowed by the Henry Luce Foundation and was designed to support scholars who could be especially effective in stimulating interdisciplinary exchanges among their peers. The Henry Luce Foundation, established by Henry in 1936, honored his parents who were missionary educators in China. Today, the Foundation advances its mission through grantmaking and leadership programs in the fields of Asian studies, higher education, religion and theology, art, and public policy.
1996–1997 | Paul Strohm | Indiana University, Bloomington | Usurpation and Symbolic Legitimation in Lancastrian England |
1997–1998 | Richard Trexler | Binghamton University, State University of New York | Playing the Crucified: The Social Drama of Good Friday in Past and Present |
1998–1999 | Bertram Wyatt-Brown | University of Florida | Melancholy’s Children: Southern Writers and Alienation |
1999–2000 | Sherry Ortner | Columbia University | The Newark: An Ethnographic Study of Class and Culture in the United States |
2001–2002 | Elizabeth Clark | Duke University | Rewriting the History of Early Christianity |
2002–2003 | Sherman Cochran | Cornell University | Inside a Chinese Family: The Private Correspondence of the Lius of Shanghai, 1910–1956 |
2003–2004 | Stephen Murray | Columbia University | Telling the Story of Gothic: Building and Interlocutor |
2004–2005 | Joel Marcus | Duke University | The Passion Narrative in the Gospel of Mark |
2005–2006 | Gary Macy | University of San Diego | Ordination and Women in the Medieval West |
2006–2007 | James Dobbins | Oberlin College | Religious Meanings in Japanese Buddhist Art |
2007–2008 | David Wong | Duke University | Chinese Philosophy, Moral Psychology, and Practical Reason |
2008–2009 | Tomiko Yoda | Duke University | Girl Time: Gender, Media, and Postmodern Consumer Culture in Japan |
2009–2010 | Charles Orzech | University of North Carolina at Greensboro | The Secrets of the Three Mountains: Esoteric Buddhism in Continental East Asia, 755–1279 |
2010–2011 | Bernard Levinson | University of Minnesota | Revelation and Redaction: The Role of Intellectual Models in Biblical Studies |
2011–2012 | Dorothy Wong | University of Virginia | Formation of an International Buddhist Art Idiom in East Asia, c. 640–760 |
2012–2013 | Cynthia Brokaw | Brown University | Transforming the Frontier: Education, Book Culture, and the Rise of ”Sichuan Learning” |
2013–2014 | Jinhua Chen | University of British Columbia | Sacred Bone: Relic-Worship in Medieval China |
2014–2015 | Jinhua Jia | University of Macau | Religiosity and Literacy: The Journey of Daoist Priestesses in Tang China (618–907) |
2015–2016 | Norman Kutcher | Syracuse University | Eunuchs in the Age of China’s Last Great Emperors |
2016–2017 | Christopher Grasso | College of William & Mary | Skepticism and American Faith: From the Revolution to the Civil War |
2017–2018 | Caroline Jones | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Contested Visibilities and the Anthropogenic Image |
2018–2019 | Bart Ehrman | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | The Invention of Heaven and Hell |
2019–2020 | Olga Dror | Texas A&M University | Ho Chi Minh’s Cult in Vietnamese Statehood |
2020–2021 | Rivi Handler-Spitz | Macalester College | Contentious Conversations: Masters, Disciples, and the Culture of Yulu Literature in Late Ming China |
2021–2022 | Howard Chiang | University of California, Davis | A Transcultural Revolution of the Unconscious: Psychoanalysis and Chinese Culture across the Pacific |
2022–2023 | David Brakke | The Ohio State University | A Religion of the Books: The New Testament and Other Early Christian Scriptural Practices |
2023–2024 | Richard J. Powell | Duke University | Colorstruck! Painting, Pigment, Affect |
2024–2025 | Kim Haines-Eitzen | Cornell University | Crossing the River of Fire: Apocalypse, Transformation, and the Elements in Late Antiquity |