Timothy Nunan ‘04 has been awarded a Rhodes Scholarship for graduate study at the University of Oxford. Tim is among the 32 American college students who won the prestigious fellowships, which fund two or three years of study at Oxford. Tim was chosen for the Rhodes Scholarship from among 769 applicants from 207 colleges and university nationwide. Including the 32 American winners, approximately 80 scholars are selected worldwide each year. Winners are chosen on the basis of high academic achievement, integrity of character, a spirit of unselfishness, respect for others, potential for leadership and physical vigor.
Tim, a 2008 Princeton graduate, is currently on a Fulbright research fellowship at the University of Göttingen in Germany, where he is working on translating writings of the German jurist Carl Schmitt. Tim has translated many articles and primary sources relating to the rise of the Third Reich.
At Princeton, Tim organized public screenings of two Nazi-era films, a documentary and a comedy, for which he provided the English translations. These efforts to better explain this dark period of history exemplify Tim's mission as he heads to Oxford and toward a career as a professional historian.
"I want to challenge ossified versions of the past and pursue more public history projects," he wrote in his Rhodes application.
"Historians are society's gadflies, teaching not to forget, but also not to mystify. There's no quicker way to forget the past than to worship it," Tim wrote. "Historians, I believe, must seek to understand history's would-be villains. The point is not to apologize or forgive, but rather to emphasize that the past is inhabited not by paragons of good and evil, but by humans like ourselves."
Tim was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at Princeton and won senior thesis prizes in the Department of German and in the Program in European Cultural Studies, from which he earned a certificate. He also was a three-time winner of the German Department Book Prize for best performance in an undergraduate course.
At Chadwick, Tim played on the Varsity football and Junior Varsity tennis teams. He was a peer mentor, worked on the Mainsheet and played orchestra. At Princeton, Tim was a member of the Debate Panel, competing in tournaments at Oxford and in Ireland, Canada and Thailand. He also wrote for the Nassau Weekly student publication, taught English as a Second Language courses to Spanish-speaking immigrants in the Princeton area and served as a peer adviser.
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