Erin Besler and Marcel Sanchez Prieto announced as 2018-2019 Rome Prize Fellows

The American Academy in Rome has announced the winners of its Rome Prize, their annual fellowship that supports the independent endeavors of some 30 artists and scholars working in the arts and humanities. Erin Besler, co-founder of the LA-based firm Besler & Sons, and Marcel Sanchez Prieto, co-founder of the San Diego/Tijuana based CRO Studio, have both been awarded the honor for their work in the field of architecture. Past recipients include architects Louis Kahn, Robert Venturi, and Michael Graves.

Erin Besler has been awarded the Founders Rome Prize for her proposal The Problem with the Corner Problem, which explores why the meeting of two surfaces has caused such a perpetual problem for the field. Prieto has received the Frances Barker Tracy/Arnold W. Brunner/Katherine Edwards Gordon Rome Prize for his proposal Architectural Divides, which will explore architectural divides in the form of the portal, courtyard, and stair. Fellowships last from several months to two years and are meant to offer winners an inspiring place to pursue their work and an opportunity to interact with top minds in other fields.

Read on for the list of 2018-19 Rome Prize Fellows:

• Founders Rome Prize: ERIN BESLER
  Lecturer, Department of Architecture and Urban Design, University of California, Los Angeles; Partner, Besler & Sons
  The Problem with the Corner Problem 
• Frances Barker Tracy/Arnold W. Brunner/ Katherine Edwards Gordon Rome Prize: MARCEL SANCHEZ PRIETO
  Partner, CRO studio, San Diego and Tijuana; Professor, School of Architecture, Woodbury University 
  Architectural Divides 

DESIGN 

• Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon Polsky Rome Prize: DYLAN FRACARETA
  Design Director, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
  The Trials 
• Mark Hampton Rome Prize: AMY FRANCESCHINI
  Artist, San Francisco
  Trust Me, Not if You Are Faint at Heart

HISTORIC PRESERVATION AND CONSERVATION 

• Booth Family Rome Prize: JOANNIE BOTTKOL
  Conservator, Historic Architecture, Conservation, and Engineering Center, Northeast Region, National Park Service
  An Exploration of the Preservation of Roman Fascist Monuments 
• Charles K. Williams II Rome Prize: LORI WONG
  Project Specialist, Building and Sites Department, Getty Conservation Institute
  Replicated Experiences 

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

• Garden Club of America Rome Prize: ZANETA HONG
  Assistant Professor in Landscape Architecture, University of Virginia
  Material Traceability 
• Prince Charitable Trusts/ Kate Lancaster Brewster Rome Prize: MICHAEL JAMES SALTARELLA
  Associate, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Cambridge, MA
  Deviant Landscapes: Irregularity and the Formal Garden 

ANCIENT STUDIES

• Andrew W. Mellon Foundation/ Samuel H. Kress Foundation Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize: LIANA BRENT
  PhD Candidate, Department of Classics, Cornell University
  Corporeal Connections: Tomb Disturbance, Reuse, and Violation in Roman Italy 
• Emeline Hill Richardson Post-Doctoral Rome Prize: ALLISON L. C. EMMERSON
  Assistant Professor, Department of Classical Studies, Tulane University
  Urbanism on the Margins: Life and Death in the Roman Suburb 
• Andrew Heiskell Post-Doctoral Rome Prize: ERIC J. KONORATIEFF
  Associate Professor, History Department, Western Kentucky University
  Tribunes of the Plebs in the Roman Republic (493-431 BCE) 
• Paul Mellon/Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize: MARK LETTENEY
  PhD Candidate, Department of Religion, Princeton University
  A New Order of Books in the Theodosian Age 
• Lily Auchincloss/Samuel H. Kress Foundation/Helen M. Woodruff Archaeological Institute of America Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize: VICTORIA C. MOSES
  PhD Candidate, School of Anthropology, University of Arizona
  The Zooarchaeology of Early Rome: Meat Distribution and Urbanization (8th-6th Centuries BCE) 
• Arthur Ross Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize: SEAN TANDY
  PhD Candidate, Department of Classical Studies, Indiana University
  Carmina Qui Quondam: Poetry, Identity, and Ideology in Ostrogothic Italy 

LITERATURE

• John Guare Writer's Fund Rome Prize, a gift of Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman: KIRSTIN VALDEZ QUADE 
  Assistant Professor, Program in Creative Writing, Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University  
  Nails: A Novel 
• Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize, a gift of the Drue Heinz Trust: BENNETT SIMS
  Visiting Assistant Professor, Iowa Writers' Workshop, University of Iowa 
  Untitled Novel

MEDIEVAL STUDIES

• Donald and Maria Cox/ Samuel H. Kress Foundation Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize: ANNA MAJESKI
  PhD Candidate, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
  Visualizing the Cosmos from Fourteenth-Century Padua: From Francesco da Barberi no to Giusto de'Menabuoi 
• Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize: AUSTIN POWELL
  PhD Candidate, Department of History, Catholic University of America
  Charisma, Community, and Authority: Dominican Epistolary Practice in Italy, 1300-1500
• Millicent Mercer Johnsen Post-Doctoral Rome Prize JOHN F. ROMANO
  Associate Professor, Department of History, Benedictine College
  Tolerance of Liturgical Diversity in Medieval Europe

MODERN ITALIAN STUDIES

• Andrew W. Mellon Foundation/ National Endowment for the Humanities PostDoctoral Rome Prize: FRANCO BALDASSO Assistant Professor of Italian and Director of the Italian Studies Program, Division of Languages and Literature, Bard College Against Redemption: Literary Dissent during the Transition from Fascism to Democracy in Italy 
• Marian and Andrew Heiskell Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize: JIM CARTER
  PhD Candidate, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan
  Communities of Labor: Adriano Olivetti and the Redemption of Modernity 
• Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Post-Doctoral Rome Prize: ALESSANDRA CIUCCI
  Assistant Professor, Department of Music, Columbia University
  Resonances of the Rural across the Mediterranean: Music, Sound, and Migrant Moroccan Men in Italy 

MUSICAL COMPOSITION 

• Elliott Carter Rome Prize MICHELLE LOU
  Visiting Lecturer, Department of Music, Dartmouth College
  Hybrid Performance System
• Luciano Berio Rome Prize: JESSIE MARINO
  Adjunct Faculty, Department of Sound, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
  Live Performance Project: "The Vanity of Small Differences" 

RENAISSANCE AND EARLY MODERN STUDIES

• Anthony M. Clark/ Samuel H. Kress Foundation Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize: TALIA DI MANNO
  PhD Candidate, Department of History, University of California, Berkeley
  Christian Archaeology in Rome: The Early Church Reborn and New Empiricism of the Sacred, 1592-1644 
• Phyllis W. G. Gordan/ National Endowment for the Humanities Post-Doctoral Rome Prize: DENIS J.-J. ROBICHAUD
  Assistant Professor, Program of Liberal Studies, University of Notre Dame
  Marsilio Ficino Editions Project 

VISUAL ARTS 

• Joseph H. Hazen Rome Prize MICHAEL RAY CHARLES
  Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor of Painting, School of Art, University of Houston
  Images of the Blacks and Crocodiles 
• Abigail Cohen Rome Prize: SZE TSUNG NICOLAS LEONG
  Photographer, Los Angeles
  ...Urbis et Orbis Idem 
• Jules Guerin/Harold M. English/ Miss Edith Bloom Fund Rome Prize: HELEN O'LEARY
  Professor of Art, School of Visual Arts, Pennsylvania State University
  Safe House 
• Nancy B. Negley Rome Prize KARYN OLIVIER
  Associate Professor and Program Head for Sculpture, Tyler School of Art, Temple University
  Histories Converse 
• Jesse Howard Jr./ Henry W. and Marian T. Mitchell Rome Prize: BASIL TWIST
  Artistic Director, Dream Music Puppetry Program, HERE Arts Center, New York
  Eros Anima

2018-19 ITALIAN FELLOWS 

• Enel Italian Fellow in Architecture, Urban Design, and Landscape Architecture: ILA BEKA 
• Artist and Architectural Filmmaker, Rome and Paris
  Piazza Venezia 
• Italian Fellow in Modern Studies: CARMEN BELMONTE
  Post-Doctoral Fellow, Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max-Planck-lnstitut fur Kunstgeschichte, Rome
  Preserving a Controversial Heritage, The Afterlife of Fascist Art and Architecture in Contemporary Italy
• Cy Twombly Italian Fellow in Visual Arts: INVERNOMUTD (Simone Bertuzzi and Simone Trabucchi)
  Artists, Milan
  Black Med
• Fondazione Sviluppo e Crescita CRT Italian Fellow in Visual Arts: RENATO LEDTTA
  Artist, Turin
  The Space between Earth and Sky 
• Italian Fellow in Medieval Studies: FRANCESCO LOVINO
  Centre for Early Medieval Studies, Masaryk University, Brno
  Byzantine Imagery and the Modern Beholder: The 1905 Esposizione di a rte italo-bizantina at Grottaferrata 
• Italian Fellow in Literature: VIRGINIA VIRILLI
  Writer, Rome
  The Flamboyants