It’s that time of year, folks. The MacArthur Foundation has
announced its latest round of so-called genius grants – a term they coyly back
away from – and the world of elite institutions rejoices in the largesse it
bestows on “the creative class”. In its annual flurry of air kisses to the
Foundation’s Big Mac program (aka The MacArthur Fellows), The NewYork Times quotes Cecilia A. Conrad, leader of the fellows program, as
saying
the goal was to find “people on the precipice,” where the award will make a difference, but also to inspire creativity more broadly.
“We hope that when people read about the fellows, it makes them think about how they might be more creative in their own lives,” Ms. Conrad said. “It does something for the human spirit.”
Gimme’ a break. What a whopper. The program’s mostly special
sauce, with only a little beef on a nice fluffy bun.
Yes, since the beginning, the program’s nattered on about
helping people on the edge, “where the award will make a difference”, but it
has mostly given its awards to people who are safe and secure, that is, to
people like the good folks at the MacArthur Foundation. To be sure, most of
these people are very creative, but most of them have secure gigs as well. They
are not on any precipice. They aren’t making a living waiting tables at Mom’s
Miracle Meal, doing temp word-processing at Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe, hustling
pool at Benny’s Billiard Emporium, or any other make-do gig. They don’t have to
work day gigs to pay the rent so they can be creative at nights and on
weekends. Their day gig IS their creative gig.
Why doesn’t the Foundation come clean and stop giving awards
to people who have secure jobs? Yeah, I know, that would force them to look
outside the circle of elite institutions which they serve. It would make their
work harder. It might even force them to be, you know, creative. What a novel
idea!
* * * * *
I’ve been writing about this public relations campaign – for
that’s what it is – since 2013. In the first year I did more than simply gripe
about the unadventurous class of 2013; I also recounted the history of the
MacArthur Fellowships. Then, in a series of four follow-up posts, I elaborated
on that original critique. In subsequent years I’ve tallied the current class.
I have been accumulating those posts into a working paper:
The
Genius Chronicles: Going Boldly Where None Have Gone Before? Version 5, Working
Paper, October 2017, 52 pp. https://www.academia.edu/7974651/The_Genius_Chronicles_Going_Boldly_Where_None_Have_Gone_Before
Here’s the Big Mac “waffle” tally (percentage of awards to
people with secure gigs) for the last five years, including 2017:
2013: 63%
2014: 52%
2015: 54%
2016: 57%
2017: 50%
The 2017 tally is a first, 50-50, half at secure university
gigs, half at other gigs. Note, however, that two of those other gigs are a
tenure-track university posts, and one of them is with The New York Times. No guarantees there, unlike the secure jobs,
but they’re pretty safe. There are no starving artists in this crowd.
I’ve divided them
into four groups:
Secure university posts: 12
Pre-tenure university: 2
Other-employed: 6
Self-employed: 4
Here’s what those
categories mean:
Secure University
Positions: These people have
the rank of Associate Professor or above. As that rank normally carries tenure
I assume these people have lifetime employment. They DO NOT need this award in
order to put a roof over their head, or food on the table. For various reasons,
above and beyond the mere fact that life is tough, these people may not be
happy with their secure jobs. But that’s a different matter.
Tenure-track
University Positions: These are
assistant professors, which is normally pre-tenure. I am assuming that they are
in salary lines intended for tenure, but tenure is not guaranteed. For
example, Henry
Louis Gates failed to get tenure at Yale even though he’d won a Big
Mac (maybe it didn’t have enough cheese).
Other-Employed: These people work for someone else, but not a
university. In a number of cases they’re working at organizations they’ve
founded.
Self-Employed: Just what it says. There people are on their
own, though most of them have some substantial recognition along with
high-class track records.
And here they are, the MacArthur Fellows for 2017:
Secure University Jobs – 12
| ||
Sunil Amrith, 38,
|
Historian,
|
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
|
Regina Barzilay, 46
|
Computer scientist
|
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
|
Dawoud Bey, 63
|
Photographer and educator,
|
Columbia College Chicago, Chicago
|
Emmanuel Candès, 47
|
Mathematician and statistician
|
Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.
|
Jason De Léon, 40
|
Anthropologist
|
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.
|
Viet Thanh Nguyen, 46
|
Fiction writer and cultural critic
|
University of Southern California, Los Angeles
|
Kate Orff, 45
|
Landscape architect,
|
Founder and partner, Scape, and associate professor, Columbia, University, New York
|
Betsy Levy Paluck, 39
|
Professor of psychology and public affairs
|
Princeton University, Princeton, N.J.
|
Derek Peterson, 46
|
Historian
|
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.
|
Stefan Savage, 48
|
Computer scientist
|
University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, Calif.
|
Jesmyn Ward, 40
|
Fiction writer
|
Tulane University, New Orleans
|
Annie Baker, 36
|
Playwright
|
New York
|
Pre-tenure University Jobs - 2
| ||
Tyshawn Sorey, 37
|
Composer and musician
|
Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn.
|
Gabriel Victora, 40
|
Immunologist
|
Rockefeller University, New York
|
Other Employed - 6
| ||
Greg Asbed, 54
|
Human rights strategist
|
Coalition of Immokalee Workers and Fair Food Program, Immokalee, Fla.
|
Nikole Hannah-Jones, 41
|
Journalist
|
The New York Times Magazine, New York
|
Cristina Jiménez Moreta, 33
|
Social justice organizer
|
Co-founder and executive director, United We Dream, Washington
|
Rami Nashashibi, 45
|
Community leader
|
Inner-City Muslim Action Network, Chicago
|
Damon Rich, 42
|
Designer and urban planner
|
Co-Founder and partner, Hector, Newark
|
Yuval Sharon, 37
|
Opera director and producer
|
The Industry, founder and artistic director, Los Angeles
|
Self-Employed - 4
| ||
Njideka Akunyili Crosby, 34
|
Painter
|
Los Angeles
|
Rhiannon Giddens, 40
|
Singer, instrumentalist and songwriter
|
Greensboro, N.C.
|
Taylor Mac, 44
|
Theater artist
|
New York
|
Trevor Paglen, 43
|
Artist and geographer
|
Berlin
|
Previous articles about the MacArthur Fellow Awards
23 Big Macs for 2016: More special sauce for the elite few, https://new-savanna.blogspot.com/2016/09/23-big-macs-for-2016-more-special-sauce.html
Big Macs for 2015: Same Old Same Old, http://new-savanna.blogspot.com/2015/10/big-macs-for-2016-same-old-same-old.html
MacArthur Fellowship Update 2014: Still favoring elite
institutions, http://new-savanna.blogspot.com/2014/09/macarthur-fellowship-update-2014-still.html
MacArthur Fellowships:
Let the Geniuses Free – This is the original post in the series and tallies the
winners for 2013, http://new-savanna.blogspot.com/2013/10/macarthur-fellowships-let-geniuses-free.html
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