Historian and Political Scientist William H. Sewell Jr. Appointed to Institute Board
The Institute for Advanced Study has appointed William H. Sewell Jr., Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Political Science and History at the University of Chicago, to its Board of Trustees, effective July 1, 2009. A scholar who has focused on the relationship between history and social theory, Dr. Sewell was nominated by the Institute's School of Social Science. He succeeds Peter Galison, Joseph Pellegrino University Professor in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University, who served for the last five years.
Sewell gained his undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin in 1962, and obtained his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1971. He was a Member in the School of Social Science at the Institute in 1971-72, 1975-80 and 2002-03.
Appointed to the faculty of the University of Chicago in 1990, Sewell was named Max Palevsky Professor of Political Science and History in 1996. In 2004, he was named Franklin P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and History, and he became Professor Emeritus in 2007.
Sewell was a Professor of History and Sociology at the University of Michigan from 1985-90. He was an Associate Professor of History (1980-83) and a Professor (1983-85) at the University of Arizona, and also served as Instructor in History (1968-71) and Assistant Professor (1971-75) at the University of Chicago.
The author of numerous books and articles, Sewell is the recipient of the 1981 Herbert Baxter Adams Prize from the American Historical Association for his book Work and Revolution in France (Cambridge University Press, 1980) and the 2008 Theory Prize for Outstanding Book from the Theory Section of the American Sociological Association for Logics of History: Social Theory and Social Transformation (University of Chicago Press, 2005). In 2004, he was named a Fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
About the Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study is one of the world’s leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. The Institute exists to encourage and support curiosity-driven research in the sciences and humanities—the original, often speculative thinking that produces advances in knowledge that change the way we understand the world. Work at the Institute takes place in four Schools: Historical Studies, Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Social Science. It provides for the mentoring of scholars by a permanent Faculty of approximately 30, and it ensures the freedom to undertake research that will make significant contributions in any of the broad range of fields in the sciences and humanities studied at the Institute.
The Institute, founded in 1930, is a private, independent academic institution located in Princeton, New Jersey. Its more than 6,000 former Members hold positions of intellectual and scientific leadership throughout the academic world. Thirty-three Nobel Laureates and 40 out of 56 Fields Medalists, as well as many winners of the Wolf and MacArthur prizes, have been affiliated with the Institute.