On April 5, 2023 The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation announced the recipients of its 2023 Guggenheim Fellowships, and named Professor of Journalism and Media Studies and of History David Greenberg a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow. Greenberg is the sole 2023 Guggenheim Fellow in Biography.

“I’m extremely grateful for this honor,” Greenberg said. “Working on this biography has been extraordinarily demanding, and this will allow me to carry it over the finish line. I think people are now recognizing what a historic figure John Lewis was and how much a biography of him is needed.”

This year the Guggenheim Foundation’s Board of Trustees awarded 171 Fellowships to scientists, writers, scholars, and artists across 48 fields including the social sciences, the natural sciences, the humanities, and the creative arts.

The Fellows, the foundation wrote, “were selected from a rigorous application and peer review process out of almost 2,500 applicants. These successful applicants were appointed on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise.”

Edward Hirsch, President of the Guggenheim Foundation and 1985 Fellow in Poetry said, “Like Emerson, I believe that fullness in life comes from following our calling. The new class of Fellows has followed their calling to enhance all of our lives, to provide greater human knowledge and deeper understanding. We’re lucky to look to them to bring us into the future.”

The fellowship will support Greenberg’s work on a biography of the late American Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis. 

Greenberg is a frequent commentator in the national news media on contemporary politics and public affairs. He specializes in American political and cultural history. His most recent book, “Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency” (W.W. Norton, 2016) examines the rise of the White House spin machine, from the Progressive Era to the present day, and the debates that Americans have waged over its implications for democracy.

Greenberg’s first book, “Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image” (W.W. Norton, 2003) won the Washington Monthly Annual Political Book Award, the American Journalism History Award, and Columbia University’s Bancroft Dissertation Award. “Calvin Coolidge” (Henry Holt), a biography for the American Presidents Series, was published in December 2006 and appeared on the Washington Post list of best books of 2007. 

Formerly a full-time journalist, Greenberg is now a contributing editor to Politico Magazine, where he writes a regular column. He previously served as managing editor and acting editor of The New Republic (and later a contributing editor) and a columnist for Slate.

Early in his career, he was the assistant to author Bob Woodward on “The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House” (Simon & Schuster, 1994). He has also written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Daedalus, Dissent, Raritan, and many other scholarly and popular publications.

His awards and honors include the Hiett Prize in 2008, given each year to a single junior scholar in the humanities whose work has had a public influence, as well as fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the American Academic of Arts & Sciences, the Cullman Center of the New York Public Library, and the Leon Levy Center for Biography. He is also a past winner of the Rutgers University Board of Trustees Research Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence. He graduated from Yale University, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Learn more about the Journalism and Media Studies Department and major on the Rutgers School of Communication and Information website.