Erica Moretti, associate professor, Modern Languages and Cultures, has received new recognition from the University of Notre Dame. Moretti’s biography of Maria Montessori, The Best Weapon for Peace: Maria Montessori, Education, and Children’s Rights, received an honorable mention for the Shannon Prize from Notre Dame’s Nanovic Institute. The prize honors books on European history that transcend a single-country view to inspire “new ways of thinking about contemporary Europe as a whole.” The jury described The Best Weapon for Peace as “an elegantly written work that fundamentally reshapes our understanding of Maria Montessori, the prominent educational theorist of the 20th century whose work continues to exert significant influence in contemporary times.”
Moretti also won a Peter R. D’Agostino research travel grant from Notre Dame. The grant supports research in Roman archives for projects on U.S. Catholic history. Read more about the prize here.