Robert Fogarty, left, and Scott Sanders, right, were recently elected to the Massachusetts Historical Society. (Photos courtesy of The Antioch Review and The Record)
Two Antioch College scholars honored
- Published: February 27, 2018
Two local scholars are joining the ranks of notables including John Kerry and Conan O’Brien as fellows of the nation’s oldest historical society.
Historian Robert Fogarty and archivist Scott Sanders, both of Antioch College, were recently elected to the Massachusetts Historical Society. They are among 12 new fellows, including Kerry, the former U.S. Secretary of State and presidential candidate, and O’Brien, the Emmy Award-winning comedy writer and late-night TV personality. Fellows are drawn from scholars and civic leaders, and help shape the society’s policies and act as ambassadors to the community.
Fogarty is best known locally — and across the country — as editor of The Antioch Review, one of the nation’s finest “little magazines,” or literary magazines, publishing fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Fogarty has edited the Review since 1977, winning the Pen/American Center Nora Magid Lifetime Achievement Award for Editing in 2003. The magazine has been a finalist for the National Magazine Awards four times since 2010.
Alongside his 40 years as the Review’s chief tastemaker, Fogarty is a noted historian of American communalism, Utopianism and sexuality, with numerous books and articles on those topics. He taught at Antioch College for 35 years, retiring in 2004 to become John Dewey Professor in the Humanities Emeritus.
Sanders is familiar to anyone interested in Antioch College history, serving since 2009 as the college’s archivist — or, as a 2011 press release put it, “the reigning authority on the history of the institution from its original founding to the present day.” He began working in Antioch’s archive department in 1994, and is the author of a history of the college. Steeped in Antiochiana, Sanders is also a de facto expert on the history of Yellow Springs, which overlaps substantially with the college’s own.
In addition, Sanders has a scholarly interest in the Nobel Peace Prize, and has written research notes and edited a book on the topic.
Founded in 1791, the Massachusetts Historical Society holds collections devoted to American history, including Paul Revere’s own account of his famous ride and Abigail Adams’ “Remember the Ladies” letter to John Adams, a spirited defense of women’s rights at the time of America’s founding.
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