TORONTO, November 18, 2003 -- York University English professor Deanne Williams has been named the 2003 recipient of the John Charles Polanyi Prize for literature. Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities Mary Anne Chambers made the announcement today in Toronto.
"I'm very honoured to receive this prize," Prof. Williams said. "Prof. Polanyi gave an inspiring talk at my high school, years ago, and so that gives the prize a special meaning for me."
A specialist in medieval and early modern literature, especially Shakespeare, Prof. Williams teaches English in York’s Faculty of Arts. She is currently researching the construction of English identity after the Norman Conquest using a combination of literary textual study, cultural history and literary theory.
Prof. Williams is the author of The French Fetish from Chaucer to Shakespeare and the co-editor of a collection of essays entitled Postcolonial Approaches to the European Middle Ages: Translating Cultures (both forthcoming). Current projects include studies of Renaissance Medievalism and Elizabethan culture. Prof. Williams has degrees from the University of Toronto, Oxford and Stanford where she received her PhD in 2000.
Established in 1986, the Polanyi Prizes recognize the achievement of Dr. John Charles Polanyi who received the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Polanyi Prizes, worth $15,000 each, are awarded annually in the fields of chemistry, literature, physics, physiology or medicine, and economics to scholars and researchers planning to continue postdoctoral studies at an Ontario university.
Prof. Williams will be honoured along with four other Polanyi prize winners at a ceremony at Massey College on Nov. 28, 2003, 1:30-3:30 p.m. in the presence of the Hon. James Bartleman, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.
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For further information, please contact:
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Nancy White |
David Fuller |
YU/136/03
