Professor Nicole R. Rice, Ph.D., Earns Prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship

Nicole R. Rice, Ph.D., Professor, Department of English at St. John’s University, has earned a prestigious academic fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation that will support her research in late medieval and early modern English literature.

Dr. Rice, a St. John’s faculty member since 2008, is one of 223 winners from a nationwide applicant pool of more than 5,000 scientists, social science and humanities scholars, writers, and artists. Established in 1925, the foundation seeks to “add to the education, literary, artistic, and scientific power of this country, and also to provide for the cause of better international understanding.”

Dr. Rice, who earned a 2018 National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship to research her book The Medieval Hospital: Literary Culture and Community in England, 1350-1550, (University of Notre Dame Press, 2023) said the Guggenheim selection will enable her to focus single-mindedly on her current project, A Literary History of Care: Vulnerability and Transformation in England, 1350-1600. Focusing on vulnerable groups including unwed mothers, orphans, widows, and elderly workers, the study traces how literary texts represent scenarios of care, participate in acts of care, and revise older forms in response to social change.

“Receiving the Guggenheim recognizes the high quality of my scholarship and its impact on my research field—medieval literary studies,” Dr. Rice said. “I hope the fellowship will bring attention to St. John’s as a hub for research and scholarship. The English Department deserves recognition as a home for outstanding faculty researchers working at the highest levels in their fields.”

Since its establishment in 1925, the Guggenheim Foundation has awarded nearly $450 million in fellowships to more than 19,000 scholars and artists. More than 125 of its alumni are Nobel laureates, National Book Award winners, and winners of the Bancroft and Pulitzer prizes, among others.

This year, applications in Dr. Rice’s category—creative arts and humanities—were up by 50 percent. Dr. Rice submitted for consideration a project proposal, biographical information, and, later, copies of her books and recommendations from fellow academics.

“We in the English Department know how lucky we are to have Nicole Rice—a brilliant scholar of medieval literature and culture,” said Steven Mentz, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Department of English. “We are thrilled the Guggenheim Foundation has awarded her its prestigious fellowship; her students and colleagues will benefit from the support she is receiving.”

Recognizing both past accomplishments and future academic promise, Guggenheim Fellowships are considered among the highest intellectual and creative honors in North America. The current class of fellows represents 55 scholarly disciplines and artistic fields, 97 academic institutions, and 33 US states and the District of Columbia. Also represented are three Canadian provinces and eight countries beyond the United States and Canada.

“Our new class of Guggenheim Fellows is representative of the world’s best thinkers, innovators, and creators in art, science, and scholarship,” said Edward Hirsch, award-winning poet and President of the Guggenheim Foundation. “As the foundation enters its second century and looks to the future, I feel confident that this new class of 223 individuals will do bold and inspiring work.”