Musicologist Andrew Hicks awarded Berlin Prize

Andrew Hicks, assistant professor of music and medieval studies, has been awarded a prestigious Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin. Hicks is one of 21 scholars, writers and artists to receive the prize for 2017-18.

The highly competitive Berlin Prize is awarded annually to scholars, writers, composers and artists from the United States who represent the highest standards of excellence in their fields. Fellows receive a monthly stipend, partial board and accommodations at the academy’s lakeside Hans Arnhold Center in Berlin-Wannsee.

The Berlin Prize provides recipients with the time and resources to step back from their daily obligations to work on academic and artistic projects they might not otherwise pursue. Fellows are encouraged to work with local individuals and institutions in the academy’s well-established network, forging connections and transatlantic relationships. During their stay, fellows engage audiences through public lectures, performances and readings, which take place at the academy and throughout Berlin and Germany.

While in residence in spring 2018, Hicks will work toward completion of his second monograph, “The Broken Harp: Musical Metaphor in Classical Persian Literature.” Hicks describes the project as a richly textured media archaeology of the real and imagined soundscapes of medieval Persian poetry, documenting and detailing the role of the auditory within the poetic imagination. He said the book will “reframe the history of medieval Persian musical culture through a focus on the technical vocabulary, poetic imagery, artistic visualizations, and philosophical metaphors of music and musical experiences in medieval Persian literary traditions.”

Hicks’ research focuses on the intellectual history of early musical thought from a cross-disciplinary perspective that embraces philosophical, cosmological, scientific and grammatical discourse in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and spans the linguistic and cultural spheres of Latin, Greek, Persian and Arabic. He is the author of “Composing the World: Harmony in the Medieval Platonic Cosmos” (2017), and he collaborated with the Rev. Édouard Jeauneau on an edition of John Scottus Eriugena’s “Commentary and Homily on the Gospel of John” (2008). They also have a forthcoming first edition of William of Conches’ Glosulae super Priscianum.

Linda B. Glaser is a staff writer for the College of Arts and Sciences.

Media Contact

Rebecca Valli