Six Princeton faculty members and arts fellows have received 2025 Guggenheim Fellowships supporting scholars in the creative arts, social sciences, natural sciences and humanities. This year’s recipients are Maria Chudnovsky, Thomas Conlan, yuniya edi kwon, Rhodri Lewis, Carolyn Rouse and Peter S. Shin.

Undergraduate and graduate alumni Laura Beers ’00, Angela Esterhammer *90, Kellen Funk *18, Katherine Ludwig Jansen *95, Katie Kitamura ’99, Annette Yoshiko Reed *02, Accra Shepp ’84, James Morton Turner *04 and Carla Williams ’86 also received Guggenheim Fellowships.

The Princetonians are among 198 American and Canadian scholars selected to receive Guggenheims, which recognize both “prior career achievement and exceptional promise,” according to the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation announcement. This year marks the 100th class of fellows.

Thomas Conlan

Thomas Conlan, professor of East Asian studies and history, was awarded the Guggenheim in the field of Asian studies.

His project, From Lands of Gold to Isles of Silver: Precious Metals, Trade, and State Formation in Japan 500–1700, focuses on Japan and to a lesser degree Korea and China, reveals the hitherto under-appreciated significance of precious metals in northeast Asia. It explains how relatively limited exchanges of gold in the eighth century gave way to extensive copper trading in the fifteenth, which in turn was overshadowed by silver exports in the sixteenth century. Ultimately, political and intellectual changes in Japan led to a devaluation of Japanese silver and a decline in its trade over the course of the seventeenth century. He will spend the 2025-26 academic year researching and writing this new monograph. 

Conlan’s scholarship focuses on medieval Japanese history. This spring he is teaching the undergraduate course “Living in Japan’s 16th century” and the graduate seminar “The Warrior Culture of Japan.” He joined Princeton in 2013.