Grover Zinn, Emeritus Professor at Oberlin College, has been awarded an Emeritus Fellowship from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to continue his research on the twelfth-century philosopher and mystic Hugh of Saint-Victor.
The Mellon Emeritus Fellowship program provides up to $35,000 to support one year of research activities for outstanding scholars in the humanities and social sciences who are retired but still active in the academic community.
Zinn's project will center on the writings of Hugh of Saint-Victor, and will involve three intertwined components. Zinn will write an essay on the historical and theological study of the ideas of Hugh of Saint-Victor on the contemplative life, will translate into English two of Hugh's principal works--De archa Noe and Libellus de formatione arche--and will, with the aid of an Oberlin graduate, create a digital realization of a complex drawing that features prominently in the texts.
"I intend to engage readers in an exploration of the interaction of experience, the nature of religious symbols, and the process of worldview and spiritual construction," said Zinn.
"My intended audience is not limited to specialists in Victorine thought, or in medieval mysticism, but to a broader audience interested in the intersection of the history of ideas, theology, religious experience, mysticism, spiritual discipline and itineraries, and the history of art."
Professor Zinn's research has dealt with medieval religion, and his published works include Richard of St. Victor: The Twelve Patriarchs, the Mystical Ark, Book Three of Trinity
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