Valzhyna Mort, assistant professor of literatures in English, received the Rome Prize in Literature for 2021-2022.
Mort’s 2020 poetry collection “Music for the Dead and Resurrected” was named one of the best poetry books of 2020 by The New York Times and is shortlisted for the International Griffin Prize. Her previous collections include “Factory of Tears” and “Collected Body.” Mort’s work has been honored with the Lannan Foundation fellowship, the Amy Clampitt fellowship, and the Bess Hokin Prize from Poetry. Her work has been shortlisted for the Forward Prize for the Best Single Poem, and has appeared in Best American Poetry, The New Yorker, Poetry, Poetry Review, Poetry International, Granta, and many more. Mort translates between English, Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish.
Mary Jane Dempsey, graduate student in the Department of Romance Studies, received the Rome Prize in Modern Italian Studies to work on her project “Remember to Forget: Migration, Gender and Transnational Identities in Twentieth Century Italy.” At Cornell, Dempsey focuses on postcolonial, feminist and memory studies.
The American Academy in Rome offers these highly competitive fellowships to support advanced independent work and research in the arts and humanities. This year, the gift of “time and space to think and work” was awarded to thirty-five American and five Italian artists and scholars. They will each receive a stipend, workspace, and room and board at the Academy’s eleven-acre campus in Rome, starting in September 2021.
Rome Prize winners are selected annually by independent juries of distinguished artists and scholars through a national competition. The eleven disciplines supported by the Academy include: ancient studies, architecture, design, historic preservation and conservation, landscape architecture, literature, medieval studies, modern Italian studies, music composition, Renaissance and early modern studies, and visual arts.
