From Edward Hirsch, President

FOR RELEASE: June 3, 2004

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded thirty-six Fellowships, with a total grant allocation of $1,188,000, to artists, scholars, and scientists from Latin America and the Caribbean according to Edward Hirsch, Foundation president. There were 819 applicants. Countries represented this year by the new Fellows include Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

The Foundation grants Fellowships through two annual competitions: one for citizens and permanent residents of the United States and Canada; the other for citizens and permanent residents of Latin America and the Caribbean. The Fellowships are awarded to persons who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts. Decisions are based on recommendations from hundreds of expert advisors and are approved by the Foundation's Board of Trustees, which includes seven members who are themselves past Fellows of the Foundation--Joel Conarroe, Joyce Carol Oates, Richard A. Rifkind, Charles A. Ryskamp, Wendy Wasserstein, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, and Edward Hirsch.

The diversity of the 2004 Fellows is worth noting. The new Fellows range in age from the 30-year-old sculptor Liset Castillo to the 69-year-old film maker Oscar Handler. The 36 new Fellows are diverse not only in age, but also in their interests as the following samples show: Oscar E. Martínez's development of new nanoscopies and nanospectroscopies; Margarita Paksa's multimedia and conceptual art; Leticia Reina's study of political engagement by indigenous peoples in the 19th century; José Eduardo P. W. Bicudo's research on nutritional adaptation in humans subjected to malnutrition; Luis A. Humberto Rodríguez Pastor's history of the Chinese of Lima and the Peruvian Chinese community; the fiction of Rosario Ferre of Puerto Rico; the poetry of Yolanda Pantin of Venezuela; and the installation art of Aristides Osvaldo Félix Salerno Nuñez of Paraguay.

In its selection process, the Foundation consults with distinguished scholars and artists regarding the accomplishments and promise of the applicants and presents this evidence to the Committee of Selection. This year's Committee of Selection consists of Sadhan Kumar Adhikari, Professor of Physics, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Universidade Estadual Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil; Adolfo Gilly, Professor in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, National Autonomous University of Mexico; Guillermo Jaim-Etcheverry, Professor of Cell Biology and Histology and Rector, University of Buenos Aires; Friedrich Katz, Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor of Latin American History, University of Chicago; and Sylvia Molloy, Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities, New York University.

The due date for applications in the competition for Latin America and the Caribbean is December 1 each year. Persons interested in applying should write to the Foundation at 90 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016 for information and forms.

The full list of all 2004 Fellows, including those named in the United States and Canadian competition, is on the World Wide Web at http://www.gf.org.
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