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| What a MacArthur Foundation ‘Genius Grant’ Gave Me | What a MacArthur Foundation ‘Genius Grant’ Gave Me |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| The MacArthur Foundation just announced its fellows for this year. You may call the prestigious annual award the “genius grant” if you insist. I won’t. The foundation prefers it that way. And as a former recipient, I am inclined to follow their lead. | The MacArthur Foundation just announced its fellows for this year. You may call the prestigious annual award the “genius grant” if you insist. I won’t. The foundation prefers it that way. And as a former recipient, I am inclined to follow their lead. |
| The $800,000 award, disbursed over five years, can change a person’s life. It is one of very few awards that come with no strings attached. The financial gift can be spent however the grantee chooses. More than that, the institutional recognition — being a MacArthur fellow — confers legitimacy. Money and legitimacy are rare gifts to those who are not born into both. | The $800,000 award, disbursed over five years, can change a person’s life. It is one of very few awards that come with no strings attached. The financial gift can be spent however the grantee chooses. More than that, the institutional recognition — being a MacArthur fellow — confers legitimacy. Money and legitimacy are rare gifts to those who are not born into both. |
| When I got the call in August 2020, I was easy to fool. And they do fool you. The pretense for the conversation was to discuss judging a grant program. That’s a regular academic service. Nothing strange about the request. Like many scholars, I had a vague notion of the MacArthur calendar. Awards are announced in the fall. It is presumed that awardees know a month or so before the announcement. | When I got the call in August 2020, I was easy to fool. And they do fool you. The pretense for the conversation was to discuss judging a grant program. That’s a regular academic service. Nothing strange about the request. Like many scholars, I had a vague notion of the MacArthur calendar. Awards are announced in the fall. It is presumed that awardees know a month or so before the announcement. |
| I still never imagined that it was the Call. | |
| At that point in my career, I had an enviable public profile: I had tenure and had written award-winning books. I took professional risks, like weighing in on academic misconduct and inequality in education, and the biggest risk of all: I talked about popular culture through an academic lens and in an accessible writing style. My combination of rigor and accessibility meant that I had a sort of split status. I was well regarded, but not part of any inner circle. | At that point in my career, I had an enviable public profile: I had tenure and had written award-winning books. I took professional risks, like weighing in on academic misconduct and inequality in education, and the biggest risk of all: I talked about popular culture through an academic lens and in an accessible writing style. My combination of rigor and accessibility meant that I had a sort of split status. I was well regarded, but not part of any inner circle. |
| That suited me fine. I value the authenticity of writing from an outsider’s perspective. But it also meant that my work was always bootstrapped. I had not won major fellowships or grants to complete my dissertation research or first genre-bending book. I mentored students but had little institutional support to share with them. | That suited me fine. I value the authenticity of writing from an outsider’s perspective. But it also meant that my work was always bootstrapped. I had not won major fellowships or grants to complete my dissertation research or first genre-bending book. I mentored students but had little institutional support to share with them. |
| I produced good work at a rare pace, fueled by egg rolls and intellectual curiosity. It was thrilling. It took its toll. | I produced good work at a rare pace, fueled by egg rolls and intellectual curiosity. It was thrilling. It took its toll. |
| I was the first Ph.D. in my immediate family, and certainly the first public intellectual in my personal network. I paid a steep price for my training. Student loan debt, consumer debt, sleep debt — I had it all. Another successful book helped me turn a financial corner. But that phone call from the MacArthur Foundation straightened the road before me. | I was the first Ph.D. in my immediate family, and certainly the first public intellectual in my personal network. I paid a steep price for my training. Student loan debt, consumer debt, sleep debt — I had it all. Another successful book helped me turn a financial corner. But that phone call from the MacArthur Foundation straightened the road before me. |
| I still take risks, but with a safety net. My risks also started to look smarter to other people. Being a MacArthur fellow validates your work and how you work. That has been as transformative as the cash award. That is why I always scan the list of grantees for its diversity. I want this kind of transformation for people who work a little differently from the norm. I want it for people who bootstrapped their art, their science and themselves. | I still take risks, but with a safety net. My risks also started to look smarter to other people. Being a MacArthur fellow validates your work and how you work. That has been as transformative as the cash award. That is why I always scan the list of grantees for its diversity. I want this kind of transformation for people who work a little differently from the norm. I want it for people who bootstrapped their art, their science and themselves. |
| This year’s cohort includes 15 women and 19 nonwhite recipients. It feels noteworthy that there are two Indigenous Native American recipients. Social class is trickier to track, but institutional affiliations are a rough proxy for those who are not “manner born”: Harvard, Princeton and Smith add marks for elite universities and colleges. Public institutions like the State University of New York, the University of Minnesota and the University of Kansas add different marks. Despite the widely held belief that prestigious New England institutions patented sagacity, I have it on excellent authority that some geniuses “y’all.” Clemson University and the University of Georgia bring some Southern representation. It is an inspiring list, more diverse than many, and more hopeful about our collective ability to nurture creativity. | This year’s cohort includes 15 women and 19 nonwhite recipients. It feels noteworthy that there are two Indigenous Native American recipients. Social class is trickier to track, but institutional affiliations are a rough proxy for those who are not “manner born”: Harvard, Princeton and Smith add marks for elite universities and colleges. Public institutions like the State University of New York, the University of Minnesota and the University of Kansas add different marks. Despite the widely held belief that prestigious New England institutions patented sagacity, I have it on excellent authority that some geniuses “y’all.” Clemson University and the University of Georgia bring some Southern representation. It is an inspiring list, more diverse than many, and more hopeful about our collective ability to nurture creativity. |
| If this year’s announcement is anything like those of previous years, two things about the award will be discussed: the money and the foundation’s selection process, which is shrouded in secrecy. | If this year’s announcement is anything like those of previous years, two things about the award will be discussed: the money and the foundation’s selection process, which is shrouded in secrecy. |
| Money and secrecy fascinate us. The intrigue of money goes without saying, and secrecy in the age of social media feels like a magic trick. But the money and the secret selection process aren’t the most novel things about the MacArthur Fellowship. The most novel thing is that it is really, really hard to game. Sure, going to an Ivy League institution helps. Solving an intractable global problem doesn’t hurt. But fellows have been community workers and artists, chroniclers of small stories and scholars doing the slow work of math, science and the humanities. There are not many awards that invest in and confer legitimacy on people from all walks of life. There are even fewer still that look so widely for people who are thinking about our world in divergent ways. The MacArthur Fellowship is unique in that way. When you select for that kind of meaningful diversity, you don’t choose geniuses. You grow them. | Money and secrecy fascinate us. The intrigue of money goes without saying, and secrecy in the age of social media feels like a magic trick. But the money and the secret selection process aren’t the most novel things about the MacArthur Fellowship. The most novel thing is that it is really, really hard to game. Sure, going to an Ivy League institution helps. Solving an intractable global problem doesn’t hurt. But fellows have been community workers and artists, chroniclers of small stories and scholars doing the slow work of math, science and the humanities. There are not many awards that invest in and confer legitimacy on people from all walks of life. There are even fewer still that look so widely for people who are thinking about our world in divergent ways. The MacArthur Fellowship is unique in that way. When you select for that kind of meaningful diversity, you don’t choose geniuses. You grow them. |
| This year’s cohort has a couple of names that my readers may recognize. The writer Kiese Laymon joined me on “The Ezra Klein Show” last year. I have mentioned Professor P. Gabrielle Foreman’s digital archive work, The Colored Convention Project. It is also nice to see sociologists working on social problems in the mix, such as Jennifer Carlson and Reuben Jonathan Miller. A great way to engage with this annual celebration of human creativity is to spend some time learning about the fellows’ work. It might inspire you. At the bare minimum, it can make the rest of the news cycle easier to stomach. The full list of fellows can be found here. | This year’s cohort has a couple of names that my readers may recognize. The writer Kiese Laymon joined me on “The Ezra Klein Show” last year. I have mentioned Professor P. Gabrielle Foreman’s digital archive work, The Colored Convention Project. It is also nice to see sociologists working on social problems in the mix, such as Jennifer Carlson and Reuben Jonathan Miller. A great way to engage with this annual celebration of human creativity is to spend some time learning about the fellows’ work. It might inspire you. At the bare minimum, it can make the rest of the news cycle easier to stomach. The full list of fellows can be found here. |
| I would prefer not to think about Kanye West. It is generally fine to ignore him. Now is not one of those times. On Sunday, West rattled off an antisemitic rant on Twitter. Elon Musk has not yet purchased the social media site; that might explain why Twitter quickly locked West’s account. (Musk took the opportunity to welcome his friend Kanye back to the site after the artist had taken a break.) | I would prefer not to think about Kanye West. It is generally fine to ignore him. Now is not one of those times. On Sunday, West rattled off an antisemitic rant on Twitter. Elon Musk has not yet purchased the social media site; that might explain why Twitter quickly locked West’s account. (Musk took the opportunity to welcome his friend Kanye back to the site after the artist had taken a break.) |
| As has been noted elsewhere, West seems to have a public meltdown whenever he has a new project to promote. This season it is his fashion line. The Twitter rant came soon after he debuted a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt at Paris Fashion Week. | As has been noted elsewhere, West seems to have a public meltdown whenever he has a new project to promote. This season it is his fashion line. The Twitter rant came soon after he debuted a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt at Paris Fashion Week. |
| There is no hierarchy of oppression. But there is a context for all speech. The context of West’s antisemitic rhetoric is a global resurgence of reactionary right social movements that target historically minoritized groups to solidify their own political and economic gain. That is the context in which West tweeted that he was going to go “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.” This is not trolling. This is something more sinister. | There is no hierarchy of oppression. But there is a context for all speech. The context of West’s antisemitic rhetoric is a global resurgence of reactionary right social movements that target historically minoritized groups to solidify their own political and economic gain. That is the context in which West tweeted that he was going to go “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.” This is not trolling. This is something more sinister. |
| Tressie McMillan Cottom (@tressiemcphd) is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science, the author of “Thick: And Other Essays” and a 2020 MacArthur fellow. | Tressie McMillan Cottom (@tressiemcphd) is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science, the author of “Thick: And Other Essays” and a 2020 MacArthur fellow. |