The New York City-based Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has announced the recipients of its 2004 Distinguished Achievement Awards.

The awards, which honor scholars who have made significant contributions to the humanities and enlarged opportunities for scholarship at their institutions, amount to as much as $1.5 million per person over three years and are intended to provide recipients and their institutions with resources to deepen their scholarship. This year's recipients are John Dower, professor of history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Michael Fried, professor of humanities and the history of art at Johns Hopkins University; Philip Gossett, professor of music at the University of Chicago; and Christine Korsgaard, professor of philosophy at Harvard University.

"The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has, from its inception, been dedicated to enabling first rate scholars and institutions to cultivate and to advance humanistic learning and understanding," said Mellon Foundation president William G. Bowen. "These awards are made in recognition of individuals who have excelled in that mission and whose work and influence continue to enrich the broader community of humanistic studies."