William J. Cronon, the Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at UW–Madison, has been elected to the newest cohort of Fellows of the British Academy.
Selected were 42 scholars and experts from the UK and 19 scholars from the U.S., France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and Uganda, known as “Corresponding Fellows,” including Cronon.
Cronon’s voice has been integral to shaping the debate around the question, “What is wilderness?” Since joining the faculty at UW–Madison in 1992, he has studied, written and spoken widely on the connection between humans and nature. He is a founding faculty member of the university’s Nelson Institute Center for Culture, History and Environment. His book, “Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West,” explored how landscape shaped the city, and vice versa. The book received the 1992 Bancroft Prize and was a finalist for the 1992 Pulitzer Prize in History.