I am thrilled to have been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for 2008-2009. According to the Guggenheim Foundation’s website, “Guggenheim Fellows are appointed on the basis of stellar achievement and exceptional promise for continued accomplishment.” I’m so honored to be among such a prestigious group of scholars and artists.
For the fellowship application, I proposed a book that would be a take-off on my history of the Bailey book controversy. Here’s a clip from my proposal:
“The mainstream book I now want to write goes beyond that article’s work to unpack further what happened in this story—to consider the particular personalities and phenomena involved—but also to consider similar cases, to try to draw some general conclusions about the modern day history and philosophy of science-meets-identity-politics. What happened to Bailey was so egregious that some scientists I’ve talked to take it as reason to simply pooh-pooh any activist’s critiques. But while some of Bailey’s critics clearly went too far, identity-politics activists are not wrong to be seriously concerned about what impact the work of scientists like Bailey will have on their rights and reputations. They are certainly right to raise the question of what leaders of marginal groups are to do when a socially powerful individual—a university-based scientist—with a claim to ‘value-neutral’ work draws conclusions that, in fact, support or weaken important cultural values.
So, my plan for this book is to expand out from where I’ve already been, to flesh out further this one particular story but also to look comparatively at what happened in certain other highly-publicized identity-politics controversies involving academics…This book will compliment some recent works on the harm being done to science in universities and government (e.g., The Shadow University; The New Know-Nothings) but it will go beyond, both in its careful central case study and in taking seriously the reasonable, progressive goals of many identity-based activists frustrated by scientists who wish to build their reputations off hot topics but not to have their feet held to the fire. Where appropriate, I will draw from my own experiences of working to change the stubbornly insular field of sexology.
It certainly is gratifying to have my work supported by an institution as prestigious as the Guggenheim Foundation. I am so grateful to all those who have helped me along the way, particularly the mate (Aron Sousa), my colleagues in the Medical Humanities and Bioethics Program at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University, and historian of medicine Ann Carmichael, who co-directed my dissertation and who told me when I was a graduate student that some day I would have a Guggenheim Fellowship. Wow, thanks, Ann!
[To read my blog about the Guggenheim Foundation reception, click here.]
[To see the book that resulted from this Fellowship, click here.]
Note: This shows the date this page was recreated at my new website, not the original publication date.