winner Peter Nero (born Bernard Nierow; B.A. 1956), O. Henry Award–winning author Irwin Shaw (born Irwin Shamforoff; B.A. 1934); and a number of Pulitzer Prize winners: author Frank McCourt (M.A. 1967), playwrights Howard Sackler (B.A. 1950) and Annie Baker (M.F.A. 2009), journalists Sylvan Fox (B.A. 1951), Stanley Penn (1947), and Harold C. Schonberg (B.A. 1937), photographer Max Desfor, and historian Oscar Handlin (B.A. 1934). Other notable alumni include Olympic fencers Ralph Goldstein and Nikki Franke (B.S. 1972), chess grandmaster and five-time U.S. champion Gata Kamsky (B.A. 1999), Jewish Defense League founder Meir Kahane (B.A. 1954), and civil rights activist Al Sharpton (1975). Notable faculty F. Murray Abraham (born 1939), actor of stage and screen; professor of theater, winner of the Academy Award for Best Actor Vito Acconci, designer, landscape architect, performance and installation artist Eric Alterman (born 1960), liberal journalist Lennart Anderson, figurative painter Hannah Arendt, philosopher and political theorist; author of The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) and The Human Condition (1958) Solomon Asch, Polish-American Gestalt psychologist and pioneer in social psychology John Ashbery (1927–2017), poet, Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winner; tenured faculty member from c. 1972 to 1986 Robert Beauchamp, painter Maír José Benardete, scholar of Sephardic studies and Professor of Spanish and Sephardic Studies William Boylan (1869–1940), first President of Brooklyn College Edwin G. Burrows (1943–2018), historian; Pulitzer Prize for History winner for co-writing Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 with Mike Wallace Frances Sergeant Childs, historian; one of the college's founding faculty members Margaret Clapp, scholar, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, President of Wellesley College Michael Cunningham (born 1952), novelist; winner of Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and PEN/Faulkner Award for The Hours Rudy D'Amico (born 1940), professional National Basketball Association scout, and former Brooklyn College and professional basketball coach who coached Maccabi Tel Aviv to the Euroleague Championship Lois Dodd (born 1927), painter Charles Dodge (born 1942), composer, founder of the Center for Computer Music Alphonsus J. Donlon, President of Georgetown University Paul Edwards (born Paul Eisenstein), Professor of Philosophy, editor of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy John Hope Franklin, historian of the US, former Chairman of the History Department, president of Phi Beta Kappa, and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom Jack Gelber, playwright and theater director; taught at Brooklyn College 1972–2003 Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997), Beat Generation poet and Pulitzer Prize for Poetry finalist; Distinguished Professor of English from