Among the 25 recipients of this year's MacArthur Foundation's $800,000 "genius" awards, announced yesterday, are writers, most notably Robin Wall Kimmerer and Kiese Laymon, and many from different fields who have published books. Among the winners:
Jennifer Carlson, a sociologist whose books include Citizen-Protectors: The Everyday Politics of Guns in an Age of Decline (Oxford University Press, 2015), Policing the Second Amendment: Guns, Law Enforcement, and the Politics of Race (Princeton University Press, 2020) and the forthcoming Merchants of the Right: Gun Sellers and the Crisis of American Democracy (Princeton University Press).
P. Gabrielle Foreman, "literary historian and digital humanist." She is the author of Activist Sentiments: Reading Black Women in the Nineteenth Century (University of Illinois Press, 2009) and the upcoming Praise Songs for Dave the Potter: Art and Poetry for David Drake (University of Georgia Press) as well as co-editor of The Colored Conventions Movement: Black Organizing in the Nineteenth Century (University of North Carolina Press, 2021).
Martha Gonzalez, "musician, scholar, and artist/activist." She is the author of Chican@ Artivistas: Music, Community, and Transborder Tactics in East Los Angeles (University of Texas Press, 2020).
Monica Kim, a historian who is the author of The Interrogation Rooms of the Korean War: The Untold Histories (Princeton University Press, 2019).
Robin Wall Kimmerer, "plant ecologist, educator, and writer." She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (Milkweed, 2013) and Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses (Oregon State University Press, 2003).
Joseph Drew Lanham, "ornithologist, naturalist, and writer." His books include The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature (Milkweed, 2016) and Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts (Hub City Press, 2021).
Kiese Laymon, whose works include the novel Long Division (Simon & Schuster, 2013), the essay collection How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America (Simon & Schuster, 2013) and the memoir Heavy (Simon & Schuster, 2018).
Reuben Jonathan Miller, "sociologist, criminologist, and social worker," who is the author of Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration (Little, Brown, 2021).
Loretta J. Ross, "reproductive justice and human rights advocate." Ross is the co-author of Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organizing for Reproductive Justice (Haymarket Books, 2004), co-editor of Radical Reproductive Justice: Foundations, Theory, Practice, and Critique (The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2017), and co-author of the textbook Reproductive Justice: An Introduction (University of California Press, 2017).
Steven Ruggles, "historical demographer" and author of Prolonged Connections: The Rise of the Extended Family in Nineteenth-Century England and America (University of Wisconsin Press, 1987).