Last week, history professor Darrin McMahon was awarded a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship Award. A Guggenheim Fellowship is an award for scholars in the middle of their careers who have demonstrated exceptional capability in their field. This year, McMahon was selected from a pool of over 3,000 candidates to be one of 178 fellows. After receiving his doctorate at Yale University, he became a professor at Florida State University and joined Dartmouth in 2014. A scholar of the French Revolution and European Enlightenment, he is the author and editor of the award-winning book “Happiness: A History” (2006), which has been translated into 12 languages and honored as one the “Best Books of the Year 2006” by The New York Times. In 2013, he also finished a book on the history of genius notions, titled “Divine Fury: A History of Genius.” His writings are frequently praised by many publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Literary Review and The Wall Street Journal. The Dartmouth sat down with professor McMahon after the announcement of the awards to discuss this prize, his current projects and his advice for students.
What motivated you to apply for the Guggenheim Awards in the first place? What application material did you submit to compete with other also really outstanding fellows in your area?
DM: I have applied once before, and I didn’t get it. We all know it’s an extraordinarily prestigious award and, to people in humanities, it is something aspire to. The award is based on your past works and what you are thinking about in the future. I submitted my major books to date and the project I submitted for going forward is a history of lighting practices, the illumination in the age of Enlightenment. I am interested in the connection between public lighting, which happened for the first time in the 18th century, and the Enlightenment as a broader cultural and intellectual movement. That is the main project. I am also working on the history of the idea of equality. These are what I submitted as my application.
How do you find the literal lighting technology connected to the Enlightenment movement?
DM: It’s a complicated idea, but one important thing is that lighting practices alert people to the presence of light and there is a metaphor of light reflected by the change in lighting practices. There is also a great scientific interest in light itself as an object of inquiry, but also in light as a practical problem. Scientists of the Enlightenment get interested in how to light cities. This also permits things like sociability: people can come out at night like never before, which really changed the nature of Western civilization. People used to go to bed when the sun goes down, but they are staying up later and later in the 18th century.
What do you think this research would reveal?
DM: I was trained as an 18th century scholar, especially the history of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment always interested me — in fact, my first book was on opposition of the Enlightenment, my second book was on history of happiness and my third book was on the history of genius, and happiness and genius are all key Enlightenment notions that come to flourish in the 18th century. There’s a lot debate about what the Enlightenment was, how long has it extended. The Enlightenment almost becomes synonymous to the 18th century culture as a whole. And I think we have gone too far in that direction. I want to bring in some ways Enlightenment back to basics. It stuck me that in some level the Enlightenment was fundamentally concerned with lights, and there was not too much work about lighting in the 18th century. It is really revolutionary because this is the first time in human history that people can light up their cities. It changed ways in which people live, socialize, work, sleep.
Do you feel Dartmouth is supportive of your work?
DM: Very much so. I mean, hugely. My colleague and the administration have been supportive in any possible way. One of the wonderful things about Dartmouth is that faculties have “R” term, in which we are in residence but not actually teaching. That provides a block of time, which was just wonderful. Students are also fantastic — they always keep me on my toes and motivate me to do some researches that I will bring to the class and share with them.
You mean the questions of students also inspired you?
DM: Sure, students always inspire me with their questions. I am teaching a first-year seminar on the Enlightenment. It’s wonderful to be able to take current work into the classrooms because you are not teaching things you have worked on for a long time, but things you are actively working on. It allows you to learn and teach at the same time. To me, it is one of the best teaching experiences when I have engaged myself in the process.
If you were asked to recommend one of your books to all Dartmouth students, which one would you choose?
DM: It would be my happiness book, which is a book I am using now in a class I teach. It serves students particularly well because students are in the process of trying to figure out what are they going to do in life, whom are they going to do it with, where are they going to live and so on. These are major choices that will have an impact on students’ happiness, and it helps to have some exposure to what great minds have thought about happiness over the years. This book provides a history of changing notions of happiness and allows student to put their own thoughts and concerns in the context of how other people thought about it over time.
Do you have any plans on how to utilize the grant funds that come with the Guggenheim Award?
DM: I probably would take the year after next year off and work intensely on the light project and also on the history of equalities. I would spend the entire year researching, writing and making progress.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
