A University of Colorado at Boulder expert on the political aftermath of war is among three winners of this year's Eugene M. Kayden awards for excellence in scholarly writing.
CU-Boulder's Roland Paris joined Duke University's Karla Holloway and Anath Ariel de Vidas from the University of Haifa, Israel, in accepting Kayden awards, which are administered by the CU Foundation. A CU selection committee annually reviews the award nominations and the awards are presented by Chancellor Richard L. Bynny.
Paris received the Kayden Faculty Manuscript Award, given to a faculty member at one of CU's four campuses, for his manuscript "At War's End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict." Paris is an assistant professor of political science and teaches in the international affairs program at CU-Boulder. Professor Robert Pois, chair of the award committee, said Paris' manuscript was "excellent - one of the best manuscripts the committee had ever seen."
Cambridge University Press, which will publish Paris' book in 2004, will receive $4,000 to defray publication costs as part of the Kayden award.
Holloway, who teaches English at Duke, won the Kayden University Press Book Award for her book "Passed On: African-American Mourning Stories, A Memorial." The Kayden University Press Book Award is open to nominations from all over the United States.
De Vidas, a sociology professor at the University of Haifa, won the Kayden University Press of Colorado Book Award for "Thunder Doesn't Live Here Anymore: The Culture of Marginality Among the Teenek of Mexico." The award is open to scholars from around the world who will be published by the University of Colorado Press.
Last year, Paris won a teaching award from the CU-Boulder Student Organization for Alumni Relations. His perspectives on the war in Iraq have recently been featured in the Rocky Mountain News and on National Public Radio and CNBC.
His manuscript examines the contention that a slow pace is the key to successful democratic nation building in deeply divided countries like Iraq. "It is best to establish effective governmental institutions before unleashing electoral competition," Paris said.
His manuscript analyzes 11 post-conflict nation-building missions launched between 1989 and 1999 that tried to establish new liberal market democracies. He suggests that democratization efforts caused problems and sparked new conflicts when changes were pursued too quickly.
The awards are given in the name of CU-Boulder alumnus and Russian immigrant Eugene M. Kayden, who graduated in 1912 and went on to study at Princeton and Harvard universities. He served on the faculty at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn., from 1923 to 1955.
Kayden always maintained a particular attachment and loyalty to CU-Boulder, where his lifelong interest in Russian translation began. His gifts resulted in the creation of the Eugene M. Kayden Fund, the income from which is used for the advancement of the humanities by aiding in the publication of deserving works.
The fund is comprised of the Kayden Humanities Bequest, the Dora Kayden Gift and the Eugene M. Kayden Gift. The Kayden Advisory Committee, established in 1980, is responsible for advising the CU-Boulder chancellor on the distribution of income from the fund.