Newswise — Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of “The Mind-Body Problem” and “Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away”, has been named a recipient of the 2014 National Humanities Medal, the White House announced today.
Goldstein, currently a visiting professor at London’s New College of the Humanities, will join the faculty of New York University as a visiting professor in the Spring of 2016. She is one of 10 recipients of the humanities medal, which will be bestowed by President Barack Obama during a Sept. 10 ceremony in the East Room of the White House.
The National Humanities Medal honors an individual or organization whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the human experience, broadened engagement with history and literature or helped preserve and expand Americans’ access to cultural resources. The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) manages the nominations process for the National Humanities Medal on behalf of the White House.
“The National Endowment for the Humanities is proud to join President Obama in celebrating the achievements of these distinguished medalists,” said NEH Chairman William Adams. “The recipients of this medal have sparked our imaginations, ignited our passions, and transformed our cultural understanding. They embody how the humanities can serve a common good.”
“Professor Goldstein is one of my favorite authors, and I'm delighted that she will be joining the NYU faculty this academic year,” said NYU President John Sexton. “My anticipation of her joining our community is made all the greater by the announcement today of her recognition by the White House -- a testament to her extraordinary talents and profound insights, and a well-deserved honor.”
The ceremony will be live-streamed at 3 p.m. on Thurs., Sept. 10 at www.WhiteHouse.gov/live.
In addition to “The Mind-Body Problem” (Random House, 1983) and “Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away” (Pantheon, 2014), her most recent book, Goldstein has authored: “The Late-Summer Passion of a Woman of Mind” (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1989); “Strange Attractors: Stories” (Viking, 1993); “The Dark Sister” (Viking, 1993); “Mazel” (Viking, 1995); “Properties of Light: A Novel of Love, Betrayal, and Quantum Physics” (Houghton Mifflin, 2000); “Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel” (Atlas Books/Norton, 2005); “Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity” (Nextbooks/Schocken, 2006); and “Thirty-Six Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction” (Pantheon, 2010).
Goldstein has received Guggenheim, Radcliffe, and MacArthur fellowships and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2008, she was designated a Humanist Laureate by the International Academy of Humanism and was named Humanist of the Year 2011 by the American Humanist Association and Freethought Heroine 2011 by the Freedom from Religion Foundation.
Goldstein has taught at Barnard College, in Columbia University’s MFA writing program, and in the Department of Philosophy at Rutgers University. She has been a visiting scholar at Brandeis University and a visiting professor in the Department of Philosophy at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. She has been a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and was the Miller Scholar at the Santa Fe Institute in 2011, a Franke Visiting Fellow at Yale University’s Whitney Humanities Center in 2012, and the Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College in 2013.
Goldstein holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University and a bachelor’s degree from Barnard College.
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