The Society of Fellows is a group of scholars selected at the beginnings of their careers by

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

for their potential to advance academic wisdom, upon whom are bestowed distinctive opportunities to foster their individual and intellectual growth. Junior fellows are appointed by senior fellows based upon previous academic accomplishments and receive generous financial support for three years while they conduct independent research at Harvard University in any discipline, without being required to meet formal degree requirements or to be graded in any way. The only stipulation is that they maintain primary residence in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

, for the duration of their fellowship. Membership in the society is for life. The society has contributed numerous scholars to the Harvard faculty and thus significantly influenced the tenor of discourse at the university. Among its best-known members are philosopher

W. V. O. Quine W. may refer to: * SoHo (Australian TV channel) (previously W.), an Australian pay television channel * ''W.'' (film), a 2008 American biographical drama film based on the life of George W. Bush * "W.", the fifth track from Codeine's 1992 EP ''Bar ...

, Jf '36; behaviorist

B. F. Skinner Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher. He was a professor of psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974. ...

, Jf '36; double Nobel laureate

John Bardeen John Bardeen (; May 23, 1908 – January 30, 1991) was an American physicist and engineer. He is the only person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for the invention of the tran ...

, Jf '38; economist

Paul Samuelson Paul Anthony Samuelson (May 15, 1915 – December 13, 2009) was an American economist who was the first American to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. When awarding the prize in 1970, the Swedish Royal Academies stated that he "h ...

, Jf '40; historian

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr. (; born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger; October 15, 1917 – February 28, 2007) was an American historian, social critic, and public intellectual. The son of the influential historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. and a spe ...

, Jf '43; presidential advisor

McGeorge Bundy McGeorge "Mac" Bundy (March 30, 1919 – September 16, 1996) was an American academic who served as the U.S. National Security Advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 through 1966. He was president of the Ford Founda ...

, Jf '48; historian and philosopher of science

Thomas Kuhn Thomas Samuel Kuhn (; July 18, 1922 – June 17, 1996) was an American philosopher of science whose 1962 book ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' was influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term '' paradigm ...

, Jf '51; linguist and activist

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...

, Jf '55; biologist

E. O. Wilson Edward Osborne Wilson (June 10, 1929 – December 26, 2021) was an American biologist, naturalist, entomologist and writer. According to David Attenborough, Wilson was the world's leading expert in his specialty of myrmecology, the study of an ...

, Jf '56; cognitive scientist

Marvin Minsky Marvin Lee Minsky (August 9, 1927 – January 24, 2016) was an American cognitive and computer scientist concerned largely with research of artificial intelligence (AI), co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AI laboratory, an ...

, Jf '57; former dean of the Harvard faculty, economist

Henry Rosovsky Henry Rosovsky (September 1, 1927 – November 11, 2022)Marquis Who's Who Biographies, retrieved via LexisNexis Academic was an American economist and academic administrator who served as dean of the faculty of arts and science of Harvard Univers ...

, Jf '57; economist and whistleblower

Daniel Ellsberg Daniel Ellsberg (born April 7, 1931) is an American political activist, and former United States military analyst. While employed by the RAND Corporation, Ellsberg precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the ''Pent ...

, Jf '59; philosopher

Saul Kripke Saul Aaron Kripke (; November 13, 1940 – September 15, 2022) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition. He was a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and emerit ...

, Jf '66; ethnographer and photographer Bruce Jackson, Jf '67;

Fields Medal The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place every four years. The name of the award ho ...

-winning theoretical physicist Ed Witten, Jf '81; and writer, critic, and editor

Leon Wieseltier Leon Wieseltier (; born June 14, 1952) is an American critic and magazine editor. From 1983 to 2014, he was the literary editor of ''The New Republic''. He was a contributing editor and critic at ''The Atlantic'' until October 27, 2017, when the ...

, Jf '82.

History

Beginning in 1925, Harvard scholars

Henry Osborn Taylor Henry Osborn Taylor (December 5, 1856 – April 13, 1941) was an American historian and legal scholar. Career Taylor graduated from Harvard University in 1878 and, later, from Columbia Law School. He later received honorary degrees from Harvard ...

Alfred North Whitehead Alfred North Whitehead (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher. He is best known as the defining figure of the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which today has found applicat ...

and

Lawrence Joseph Henderson Lawrence Joseph Henderson (June 3, 1878, Lynn, Massachusetts – February 10, 1942, Cambridge, Massachusetts) was a physiologist, chemist, biologist, philosopher, and sociologist. He became one of the leading biochemists of the early 20th centu ...

met several times to discuss their frustration with the conditions of graduate study at the university. They believed that in order to produce exceptional research, the most able men required freedom from financial worries, fewer formal requirements, and the liberty to choose whatever object of study attracted them. They soon found an ally in then-Harvard-president

Abbott Lawrence Lowell Abbott Lawrence Lowell (December 13, 1856 – January 6, 1943) was an American educator and legal scholar. He was President of Harvard University from 1909 to 1933. With an "aristocratic sense of mission and self-certainty," Lowell cut a large f ...

who appointed a committee in 1926, with Henderson as chairman, to study the nature of an institution that might improve the quality of graduate education. The committee recommended the establishment of a Society of Fellows at Harvard, modeled particularly on the Prize Fellowship at

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...

, and partly on those at ''

Fondation Dosne-Thiers The Fondation Dosne-Thiers is a history library located in the 9th arrondissement of Paris at 27, place St-Georges, Paris, France. It is open to researchers who obtain recommendations from a member of the Institut de France. Description The foun ...

'' in Paris and

All Souls' College, Oxford All Souls College (official name: College of the Souls of All the Faithful Departed) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Unique to All Souls, all of its members automatically become fellows (i.e., full members of t ...

, with the hope that such a society would produce not only "isolated geniuses, but men who will do the work of the world". After years of trying to attract outside donations, Lowell funded the Society himselfhis last major institutional act before his resignation in November 1932. "There being no visible source of necessary funds," he later wrote, "I gave it myself, in a kind of desperation, although it took nearly all I had." Though it was an open secret that Lowell was the source of the anonymous donation, this was never acknowledged in his presence. After Lowell's death in 1943, the donation was officially made public; it is known as the Anna Parker Lowell Fund in memory of Lowell's wife. The society was officially inaugurated as an alternative to the Ph.D. system with the beginning of the 193334 academic year, granting fellows freedom to pursue lines of inquiry that transcended traditional academic disciplinary boundaries. Because of the core belief in the importance of informal discussions between scholars in different academic fields, both senior and junior fellows have met for dinner every Monday night during term-time. They are frequently joined by visiting scholars and Fellows are encouraged to bring guests. Originally headquartered in a two-room suite at

Eliot House Eliot House is one of twelve undergraduate residential Houses at Harvard University. It is one of the seven original houses at the college. Opened in 1931, the house was named after Charles William Eliot, who served as president of the universit ...

, one of the university's twelve residential colleges, the society was closed to women until 1972, when

Martha Nussbaum Martha Craven Nussbaum (; born May 6, 1947) is an American philosopher and the current Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she is jointly appointed in the law school and the philosoph ...

was selected as the first female junior fellow.

Current senior fellows

These are the Society's current senior fellows, who elect the incoming junior fellows:

References

External links

*
About the Society
{{authority control

Society of Fellows The Society of Fellows is a group of scholars selected at the beginnings of their careers by Harvard University for their potential to advance academic wisdom, upon whom are bestowed distinctive opportunities to foster their individual and intell ...

Learned societies of the United States 1933 establishments in Massachusetts

History

Current senior fellows

See also

References

External links