A reading and reception celebrating the winner of the annual Mary Hatch Marshall Essay Award will take place on Thursday, April 19, at noon in the Peter Graham Scholarly Commons in Bird Library. The event is free and open to the public.
Thomas J. West III
Thomas J. West III, a Ph.D. candidate in English in the College of Arts and Sciences, has been selected to receive this year’s award for the best essay by a graduate student in the humanities at Syracuse University.
West’s paper, titled “The Spirit is Willing, but the Flesh is Weak: Embodied Transcendence and Sacred Spectatorship in ‘The Robe,’” will be published in the journal Material Religion.
The annual award honors Mary Hatch Marshall, the first woman to achieve the rank of full professor in the College of Liberal Arts. She held the Jesse Truesdell Peck Chair in English literature, served as the first director of the Honors Program and was among the founding members of Library Associates.
Students from African American studies; art & music histories; English; languages, literatures and linguistics; philosophy; religion; writing studies, rhetoric and composition; and women’s and gender studies are eligible for the award.
Library Associates established the annual award to honor and help perpetuate Mary Hatch Marshall’s scholarly standards and generous spirit. Members of Library Associates, Marshall’s friends and family, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation and the Central New York Community Foundation all contributed to the endowment, established in 2004, that funds the award.
For those wishing to make a gift to the Mary Hatch Marshall Award Endowment in remembrance of or in honor of Mary Hatch Marshall, please contact Ron Thiele, assistant dean for advancement for the libraries, at rlthiele@syr.edu or 315.560.9419.
About Syracuse University
Syracuse University is a private, international research university with distinctive academics, diversely unique offerings and an undeniable spirit. Located in the geographic heart of New York State, with a global footprint, and nearly 150 years of history, Syracuse University offers a quintessential college experience. The scope of Syracuse University is a testament to its strengths: a pioneering history dating back to 1870; a choice of more than 200 majors and 100 minors offered through 13 schools and colleges; nearly 15,000 undergraduates and 5,000 graduate students; more than a quarter of a million alumni in 160 countries; and a student population from all 50 U.S. states and 123 countries. For more information, please visit www.syracuse.edu.
