"The Fellowships are awarded to men and women who have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts," according to the The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation's website.
"It's an award given to people mid-career, based on past performance and future promise," said Dumm. "My project is to do research on and write about the emergence of loneliness in the modern West from Descartes to the present."
The impetus for Dumm's project came from a long-time fascination with the idea of loneliness. "I've been thinking about self-identification since I was an undergraduate, when I read Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau," he said.
"Modern society presents the members of mass society with many opportunities for distraction, and in doing so it allows us to evade thinking about who we are and why," said Dumm. "The opportunities distract us from our loneliness, which is, at least in part, a result of our having become, by being individualized, both separate from each other and acutely aware of our separation."
"To be lonely is at the heart of being individual, and, to the extent that we are all equal, we all share our loneliness in common," added Dumm.
Dumm hopes to incorporate an interview component into his project. "The Guggenheim Fellowship will perhaps give me entree to people I might not have otherwise been able to interview," said Dumm. "I am beginning to interview prisoners who have experienced solitary confinement, and I have plans to interview women who have chosen to stay at home to raise children. Other than that, my plans are in flux."
Dumm's plans include research in Jeremy Bentham's archive at the University of London and at the supermax prison in Pelican Bay, Calif.
When he returns to the College for his 17th year in 2002, Dumm said that he hopes to incorporate some of the knowledge and background he will receive from his studies into a course on civil society.
The Fellowship is the most recent in a series of awards received by members of the political science department. "Over the past year, Professor of Political Science William Taubman and Assistant Professor of Political Science Javier Corrales have been Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars [fellows] in Washington, for example," said Department Chair and Professor of Political Science Ronald Tiersky.
"The Guggenheim Fellowship is especially prestigious, and we all are extremely glad for our colleague Tom Dumm. It is good first of all for him, but also for the department and the College," Tiersky added.
Becca Woo '02, one of Dumm's advisees, was also glad to learn of Dumm's award.
Woo, who participated in a special topics course with Dumm on the politics of loneliness last semester, enjoyed the experience. "Working with him one-on-one was challenging but inspiring ... Professor Dumm always made me want to learn more, to push the boundaries a bit further and ask one more question, and conversations always ended with a lingering hope for so much more."