David Greenberg, Historian of Presidents and Politics, Receives Hiett Prize

New Brunswick, N.J. -- David Greenberg, assistant professor of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University, is the 2008 recipient of the Hiett Prize in the Humanities. Awarded annually by the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, the $50,000 prize recognizes one young scholar in the early stages of his or her career whose work shows exceptional promise. The prize was created in 2004 by the Dallas Institute and philanthropist Kim Jordan.

“Receiving the Hiett Prize was a huge surprise and a huge honor,” Greenberg said. “What’s most gratifying is that I really do take it as an encouragement of my work – which is exactly what the Dallas Institute intends the prize to be.”

The honor is not the first for Greenberg, who teaches in Rutgers’ Journalism and Media Studies Department and is also affiliated with the History Department. Greenberg’s first book, Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image (W.W. Norton, 2003) received the Washington Monthly Annual Political Book Award, the American Journalism History Award and Columbia University’s Bancroft Dissertation Award. He has also won several prestigious grants and fellowships.

Greenberg is also the author of Calvin Coolidge (Henry Holt, 2006), which was named one of the Washington Post’s 100 best books last year, and Presidential Doodles (Basic Books, 2006). He is a contributing editor of The New Republic and a columnist for Slate, and has written

for has written for numerous scholarly and popular publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, Foreign Affairs, The Journal of American History, Reviews in American History, and Daedalus. He is currently writing a history of political “spin” for W.W. Norton.

At Rutgers, Greenberg teaches undergraduate courses on the media and government; journalism, democracy, and the public sphere; the Cold War; and, the Holocaust in American culture. He also teaches a graduate course on the 20^th century history of the news media.

The selection process for the winner is a rigorous six-month procedure.  Applicants from across the United States are initially screened, undergo a second round of evaluation and elimination, and are judged ultimately by a panel of eminent humanities professionals in a third and final stage.  Judges for the 2008 Hiett Prize were Robert Hollander, professor emeritus of European literature at Princeton University; Clayborne Carson, professor of American history at Stanford University; and Jacques Barzun, professor emeritus of history at Columbia University.

Greenberg will receive the Hiett Prize at a dinner in Dallas on Tuesday, April 8. The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet will give the keynote address.