Mara Benjamin named a Guggenheim Fellow

Mara Benjamin, Irene Kaplan Leiwant Professor of Jewish Studies at Mount Holyoke College, has been named as part of the class of 2024 Guggenheim Fellows. Benjamin is one of 188 distinguished and diverse fellows of culture creators named, working across 52 disciplines.

This year’s Guggenheim Fellows were tapped on the basis of prior career achievement and exceptional promise. They were chosen through a rigorous application and peer review process from a pool of almost 3,000 applicants.

“I’m thrilled and humbled to have received this recognition. This award will allow me to finish my current book, ‘Terrestrial: Jewish Thought and a World Disrupted,’ which analyzes how ecological crisis challenges core elements of Jewish theology and proposes constructive possible paths for reconstructing it,” said Benjamin. “Receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship is a tremendous honor and affirms the critical role of religious thought in both obstructing and facilitating our ability to grasp the severity of climate change.”

As established in 1925 by founder Senator Simon Guggenheim, each fellow receives a monetary stipend to pursue independent work at the highest level under “the freest possible conditions.” A total of 19,000 fellows have been honored since the fellowship’s establishment, including artists, scholars, poets, historians, choreographers, environmentalists and data scientists.

“I could not be more thrilled for Mara Benjamin, a creative and vibrant scholar who is exploring the intersection of Jewish theology and climate change,” said Provost Lisa Sullivan. “It is gratifying to see the Guggenheim Foundation recognizing the value of her talents and accomplishments. She is exceptionally deserving of this prestigious recognition.”

Over the past 99 years, Guggenheim Fellows have included 125 Nobel laureates, winners of the Pulitzer Prize, Fields Medal, Turing Award, Bancroft Prize, National Book Award and other internationally recognized honors. Past fellows include Zora Neale Hurston, Robert Frank, E.E. Cummings, Jennifer Doudna, Jacob Lawrence, Rachel Carson, James Baldwin, Martha Graham and Linus Pauling.