Two Humanities Lecturers Awarded NEH Grants

Two Harvard lecturers are among 137 American scholars who last week received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

The awards, of up to $27,500, make possible a year of independent post-doctoral research.

Paul D. Erickson, a Quincy House resident tutor in English and History and Literature, and Jeff C. Herf, a Adams House resident tutor in Sociology and Social Studies, will remain in residence at Harvard during their fellowships, but will be on sabbatical from their teaching duties.

The annual competition drew 1062 applications for the fellowships, said Kay Voyatzin of the NEH's office of fellowships for independent study and research.

The program provides winners with "opportunities to enhance their capacities as teachers, scholars, and interpreters of the humanities, and enables them to make significant contributions to thought and knowledge in the humanities," she explained.

Erickson won for his proposal entitled "Romantic Myths of the American Constitution 1789-1865." The basis of the proposal, his 1983 dissertation, was the first book-length study on the speeches of Daniel Webster written from a literary-rather than historical or legal-point of view.

Erickson theorized that Webster, through his political speeches, did a great deal to perpetuate a "myth of America."

"Webster was very much a romanticist," Erickson said, adding that "Rather than the novel, he used the political arena as his canvas."

Erickson, whose grant was awarded under a special division of the competition created in honor of the bicentennial anniversary of the ratification of the Constitution, will be researching the application of his theory to politicians other than Webster during the period between the ratification of the Constitution and the end of the Civil War.

Erickson said he hopes to support his theory that the constitutional and governmental interpretations of the politicians of this period may be "viewed as much as works of art as pure political analyses."

Added Erickson, "some poets used a mythic or classical mode like Homer, others a lyrical mode, like Wordsworth. These men used American history."

Herf will spend next year researching "National Identity, Western Security, and the Disjunction of Realms in West Germany, 1969-1983."

He said he hopes to examine the relationship between national identity and the security policies of West Germany between 1969 and the deployment of Euromissiles in 1983, in an effort to contribute to "an understanding of the current dilemnas of the Western Alliance and West Germany's role in it."

"It is an attempt to bridge two cultures," Herf added, "strategic and international affairs on the one hand, and an examination of European history, politics and society on the other."