UNLV film studies Hart Wegner has been awarded the Umhoefer Prize for Achievement in Humanities by the Arts and Humanities Foundation.
Wegner is professor of German, comparative literature, and film studies at UNLV. He received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Utah and his Ph. D. from Harvard University.
The Umhoefer Prize includes:
- An original 4-inch bronze sculpture of a young woman reading, titled "Favorite Pastime," signed and numbered by sculptor Nancy Aldritt Smith from a limited bronze pour commissioned by the Foundation
- Announcement of the prize in an ad space in The New Yorker magazine (issue dated December 23-30, currently on the news stands, and mailed to subscribers this week)
- A monetary prize of $3,500
- A bookstore copy of the magazine in an archival board and sleeve
- A framed copy of the announcement
The Umhoefer Prize seeks out, chooses, and honors individuals who have made significant contributions to the Humanities in books, films, discs, or other materials that are generally available to the thoughtful reader, viewer, and listener. A prize recipient may be a writer, translator, photographer, editor, artist, actor, or other participant in the human creative enterprise.
Wegner has received numerous grants and awards, such as inclusion in the Pushcart Prize and Best American Short Stories. He was the first foreign-born writer elected to the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. He won the Charles Vanda Award for Creativity in its first year and the Regents Award for Creativity in its second year. He also received the William Morris Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 1998 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Shenandoah University, Virginia.
He has written on the teaching of film, but also on John Gardner, V. S. Naipul, Bruce Chatwin, Bert Brecht, Vittorio de Sica, Jean Renoir, Virgil Goethe, Otto Preminger, Douglas Sirk, John Ford, Friedrich Duerrenmatt, and others. He recreated the original screenplay of Josef von Sternberg's Blue Angel (Der blaue Engel, Harcourt Brace) and published Houses of Ivory, a first collection of his fiction (Soho Press, distributed, by Farrar, Strauss, Giroux). Houses of Ivory was adapted by the Library of Congress for its Talking Book Program for the Blind, and recorded by the Capital American Foundation for the Blind.
