Two hundred and ninety-two scholars, artists, and scientists received Guggenheim Fellowships in 1978.
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| Moses Pendleton || Pilobolus || || ||
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| Kei Takei || || || Also won in 1988 ||
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| rowspan="4" | Drama & Performance Art || Barbara Garson || || rowspan="4" | Playwriting || ||
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| Bette Howland || <!--Peaks Island, ME--> || ||
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| Bharati Mukherjee || McGill University || ||
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| Darcy O'Brien || Pomona College and Claremont Graduate School || ||
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| rowspan="6" | Film || Ralph Arlyck || Vassar College || rowspan="6" | Filmmaking || ||
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| Thornton Willis || <!--NYC--> || Painting || ||
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| Theodore Antoniou || Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts || ||
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| C. Curtis-Smith || Western Michigan University || ||
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| Joseph A. Hudson || || ||
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| Charles Mingus || || Also won in 1971 ||
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| Conlon Nancarrow || || ||
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| David Olan || Columbia University || ||
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| Joseph Schwantner || Eastman School of Music || ||
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| Clayton Eshleman || Manual Arts High School || ||
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| Carolyn Forché || San Diego State University || ||
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| John N. Morris || Washington University in St. Louis || ||
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| Dennis Schmitz || Sacramento State University (in residence) || ||
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| Ellen Bryant Voigt || Goddard College || ||
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| James Wright || Hunter College || Also won in 1964 ||
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| David Young || Oberlin College || ||
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| rowspan="3" | Video & Audio || Tom DeWitt || SUNY at Albany || Development of the Pantograph || ||
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| Richard D. Lehan || UCLA || The idea of city in modern American literature || ||
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| William Veeder || University of Chicago || Gothic fiction in England and America || ||
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| rowspan="2" | Architecture, Planning & Design || Gordon Ashby || <!--Inverness, CA--> || Natural light in museum and gallery interiors || ||
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| John Gerassi || Queens College CUNY || Jean-Paul Sartre || ||
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| rowspan="2" | British History || || University of Pennsylvania || Culture and community in English manufacturing towns, 1780-1910 || ||
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| rowspan="2" | Classics || Vincent J. Bruno || University of Texas at Arlington || Painting techniques of Hellenistic and early Roman artists || ||
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| John B. Van Sickle || Brooklyn College and CUNY Graduate School || Propertius || ||
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| Jan de Vries || rowspan="2" | UC Berkeley || Behavior of the Dutch labor market, 1580-1850 || ||
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| Ruth apRoberts || UC Riverside || || ||
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| Patrick M. Brantlinger || Indiana University || Origins of the concept of mass culture || ||
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| Thomas Clayton || University of Minnesota || Shakespearean tragedy || ||
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| Robert A. Colby ||Queens College CUNY || Rise and decline of the novel with a purpose || ||
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| Daniel A. Harris || University of Colorado Boulder || || ||
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| George K. Hunter || Yale University || Theatrical structures of Elizabethan play || ||
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| George P. Landow || Typological symbolism in Victorian art, literature, and thought || Also won in 1973 ||
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| Richard L. Levin || SUNY at Stony Brook || Contemporary perceptions of English Renaissance drama || ||
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| Charles L. Ross || University of Virginia || Critical biography of D. H. Lawrence || ||
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| Film, Video, & Radio Studies || Manny Farber || UC San Diego || Munich school of film making, 1967-1977 || Also won in 1967 ||
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| rowspan="8" | Fine Arts Research || E. A. Carmean Jr. || National Gallery of Art || Late Cubist paintings, 1915-1928 || ||
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| rowspan="4" | French Literature || Micheline L. Braun || Hunter College and Graduate Center, City University of New York || Crisis of personality in French literature, 1890-1970 || ||
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| Claude Pichois || Vanderbilt University || || ||
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| rowspan="5" | General Nonfiction || Jervis B. Anderson || The New Yorker || Cultural portrait of Harlem, 1900-1960 || ||
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| Thurston Clarke || || Narrative account of the King David Hotel bombing || ||
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| Donald Phelps || || Critical biography of Billy de Berk || ||
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| Phillip M. Mitchell<!--name mispelled by Guggenheim--> || University of Illinois || || ||
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| rowspan="2" | History of Science & Technology || Henry Guerlac || Cornell University || Critical and variorium edition of Isaac Newton's Opticks || ||
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| Italian Literature || Clara M. Lovett || Baruch College || Democratic movement in Italy, 1830-1876 || ||
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| rowspan="5" | Linguistics || S.-Y. Kuroda || rowspan="2" | UC San Diego || Studies toward an integrated theory of language || ||
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| William S-Y. Wang || UC Berkeley || Biological mechanisms associated with language || ||
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| Michael McCanles || Marquette University || Dialectical structures of The Prince and Arcadia || ||
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| Angeliki E. Laiou || Rutgers College || Impact of Italian merchant capital upon the Eastern Mediterranean region || Also won in 1971 ||
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| Robert W. Gutman || Fashion Institute of Technology || Critical biography of Mozart || ||
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| Joel Sachs || Brooklyn College || Royal Philharmonic Society, 1813-1862 || ||
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| Dagfinn Follesdal || Stanford University || Interpretation of Husserl's phenomenology || ||
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| rowspan="4" | Religion || William F. May || Indiana University || Public responsibility of the professional, across professions || ||
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| Mark C. Taylor || Williams College || Comparative analysis of the philosophical and theological positions of Hegel and Kierkegaard || ||
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| rowspan="2" | Renaissance History || Paul F. Grendler || University of Toronto || Primary and secondary education in Renaissance Venice, 1500-1650 || ||
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| Russian History || John L. H. Keep || University of Toronto || || ||
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| Slavic Literature || Joan Grossman || UC Berkeley || Valery Bryusov || ||
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| Stanko B. Vranich || Lehman College || Critical edition of the complete works of Don Juan de Arguijo || ||
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| Elizabeth Swados || <!--NYC--> || Experiments in the theater and musical performance || ||
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| Robert J. C. Butow || University of Washington || || Also won in 1965 ||
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| Norris C. Hundley || UCLA || Evolution of Indian water rights in the American West || ||
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| Robert V. Remini || University of Illinois at Chicago || || ||
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| David E. Stannard || Yale University || Changing perceptions of self during the course of American history || ||
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| Sherwin A. Maslowe || McGill University || || ||
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| Cathleen S. Morawetz || New York University || Partial differential equations || Also won in 1966 ||
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| Michael Oppenheimer || Harvard University || || ||
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| Robert V. Wagoner || Stanford University || Gravitational radiation and cosmology || ||
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| John I. Brauman || Stanford University || Physical organic chemistry || ||
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| Christopher Edward Brion || University of British Columbia || || ||
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| Phillip R. Certain || University of Wisconsin Madison || || ||
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| Robert C. Dunbar || Case Western Reserve University || New methods of ion spectroscopy || ||
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| Darleane C. Hoffman || Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory || Mechanisms of nuclear fission || ||
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| Roald Hoffmann || Cornell University || Organic and organometallic chemistry || ||
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| Andrew S. Kende || University of Rochester || New anti-cancer drugs || ||
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| Richard G. Lawton || University of Michigan || || ||
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| David B. Geselowitz || Pennsylvania State University || Electrocardiography || ||
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| Lipman Bers || Columbia University || Teichmüller spaces and related topics || Also won in 1959 ||
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| George Glauberman || University of Chicago || || ||
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| Dana S. Scott || University of Oxford || || ||
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| Donald M. Crothers || Yale University || Democracy and critics || ||
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| Donald M. Engelman || Yale University || Structural molecular biology || ||
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| Richard J. Roberts || Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory || Molecular genetics || ||
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| Leo M. Chalupa || UC Davis || Processes of the visual system || ||
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| R. Glenn Northcutt || University of Michigan || Research with Theodore Holmes Bullock || ||
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| rowspan="5" | Organismic Biology and Ecology || Martin Leonard Cody || UCLA || Evolution of bird and plant communities in desert habitats || ||
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| Michael T. Ghiselin || UC Berkeley || Progress and pragmatism || ||
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| Lynn Margulis || Boston University || Microbial mats || ||
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| Eric R. Pianka || University of Texas at Austin || Research in the Australian Outback || ||
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| rowspan="11" | Physics || David S. Cannell || UC Santa Barbara || Polymer physics || ||
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| William Chinowsky || rowspan="2" | UC Berkeley || High-energy particle physics || Also won in 1966 ||
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| Marvin L. Cohen || Solid-state physics || Also won in 1990 ||
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| James Maurice Daniels || University of Toronto || || ||
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| Sherman Frankel || University of Pennsylvania || High-energy physics || Also won in 1956 ||
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| Roger A. Hegstrom || Wake Forest University || Atomic and molecular physics || ||
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| Vernon W. Hughes || Yale University || Elementary particle physics || ||
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| William E. Spicer || Stanford University || Electronic structure and chemistry of solid surfaces || ||
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| Michael Silverstein || University of Chicago || || ||
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| Anthony F. C. Wallace || University of Pennsylvania || Mechanical inventors and their role in the diffusion of industrial technology || ||
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| Marc Nerlove || Northwestern University || Research at the Smithsonian Institute || Also won in 1962 ||
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| Edmund S. Phelps || Columbia University || International economic justice || ||
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| Ross M. Starr || UC Davis || Microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic analysis || ||
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| Joseph Katz || SUNY at Stony Brook || Attitudes of German university students authority || ||
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| || UC Berkeley || Internal migrations and settlement of "empty lands" in Mato Grosso, Brazil || ||
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| Ian R. Macneil || Cornell University || Development of a general theory of contract || ||
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| Lawrence A. Sullivan || UC Berkeley || Dynamics of American and Common Market antitrust policy || ||
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| Robert A. Dahl || Yale University || || Also won in 1950 ||
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| Robert Jervis || UCLA || Decision-making in questions of foreign policy || ||
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| David B. Pisoni || Indiana University || Role of environment in development of speech perception || ||
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| David Premack || University of Pennsylvania || Cognition in primates || ||
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| Stephen Cole || SUNY at Stony Brook || Hierarchy of the sciences || ||
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| Alan A. Stone || Harvard University || || ||
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| David Huerta || || ||
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| Film-Video || Fernando Gagliuffi Kolich || || || ||
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| rowspan="3" | Fine Arts || Winston Branch || || Painting || ||
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| Asdrubal Colmenarez || University of Paris VIII || Finished his project Alphabet Polysensoriel || ||
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| Rubens Gerchman || Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage || || ||
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| Photography || Marco Antonio Valdivia || || || ||
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| Video & Audio || || || Research into North and South American native populations || Also won in 1982 ||
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| rowspan="4" | Humanities || rowspan="2" | General Nonfiction || Jorge Eielson || || || ||
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| Shivadhar Srinivasa Naipaul || || || ||
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| Iberian & Latin American History || Enrique Krauze Kleinbort || El Colegio de México || || ||
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| Music History || Luis Jorge González || || || ||
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| rowspan="12" | Natural Sciences || Computer Science || Carlos José Pereira Lucena<!--name he was awarded under--> || Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro || || ||
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| Earth Science || Carlos Roberto González || National University of Tucumán and CONICET || || ||
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| Mathematics || Rafael Panzone || National University of the South || || ||
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| Medicine & Health || || National Education Council of Brazil || Cardiac electrophysiology || ||
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| rowspan="2" | Molecular Biology and Ecology || Norbel Galanti || rowspan="2" | University of Chile || || ||
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| Elisa Marusic || Research at Yale University School of Medicine || ||
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| Neuroscience || || CONICET || || ||
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| Organismic Biology & Ecology || Humberto R. Maturana || University of Chile || || ||
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| rowspan="3" | Plant Science || || National University of Córdoba || Research at UC Berkeley || ||
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| Armando T. Hunziker || || || Also won in 1960 ||
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| Gerardo Martínez-López || Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario || || ||
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| rowspan="7" | Social Sciences || rowspan="2" | Anthropology & Cultural Studies || Manuel Dannemann || University of Chile || || ||
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| Larissa Adler Lomnitz || National Autonomous University of Mexico || || ||
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| Economics || || Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad || || ||
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| Political Science || || Torcuato di Tella Institute || || ||
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| Sociology || || University of São Paulo || || ||
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See also
- Guggenheim Fellowship
- List of Guggenheim Fellowships awarded in 1977
- List of Guggenheim Fellowships awarded in 1979