These remarkable human beings restore one's faith in humanity.
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BLAST!
The missed me AGAIN!
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It would be nice to see these awards given based on need. It seems antithetical to give them to highly-paid academics and scientists at elite universities.
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My guess is that some
of the money received by academics is goes to supporting research and pay grad students. And academics are not that well paid relative to their level of education, especially in the applied sciences where they could do far better in industry.
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@J.C.
It is, it's based on the need to encourage and support the people that they consider to be "geniuses". It's not public money. "Highly-paid academics" is not really what you think that means. No one in academia outside of top administrators are getting rich.
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My students have been amazed by the power of Ocean Vuong's work. I have shared excerpts from his piece that was published in the New Yorker, called "Letter to My Mother that She Will Never Read."
It is immediately clear that the relationship is complicated...and yet Vuong writes with empathy and a mature understanding of the challenges his mother faced as an immigrant to this country during wartime.
My students are empowered to consider what kinds of letters they might write to people in their own lives: letters that those people will never read. And in this way, the students let out their pain and shake off the demons. I have rarely been more moved than by reading these works inspired by the writing of Ocean Vuong.
Congratulations to Mr. Vuong and to the other winners of these grants!
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The sound you hear isn’t the Ka-Ching of cash registers but rather the gurgling sound of souls being refilled, replenished, topped off. That’s what art, music, and soaring intellect applied to everyday problems does. Bravo.
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So nice to be reminded there is yet good news out there.
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So inspiring, every single one of them. Do work that matters. As Gloria Anzaldua once said, “May we do work that matters. Vale la pena, it‘s worth the pain.”
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Pretty cool. Another amazing bunch of humans.
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"Cruddy" by Lynda Barry is simply an (amazing) novel, not one of her graphic novels.
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Just won the lottery, what’s Ocean looking so pouty and morose about?
5
John D McArthur was a bit odd too. A relative married into the family long, long ago. About 35 years ago a brilliant man got this prize for working on genome manipulating tools in a model organism, the fruit fly. I’m afraid my work was small potatoes compared to his masterful diligence and hard driving style. He already had success, multiple academic offers so he could go to California and not stay in Baltimore or Boston. For those naysayers that want even regional distribution of money - ask yourself “Would not a bright person go where other bright people, challenging people, desire to go, and not stay at home, and not stay on the family homestead?” We go where the jobs take us. If vast states west of the Mississippi have sufficient resources, then expensive science can be done. I went to Baltimore from Honolulu, as money was tight back 35-36 years ago. Do you not think I would have stayed in Honolulu if feasible? I’m no creative person like these, but heck life is what you make of it. As Tom Lehrer would say 55-60 years ago, “Life is like a sewer, you get out of it what you put into it!”
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Congratulations to the recipients. The Times needs to drop the “genius” from these grants. It trivializes the word into nothingness. If the Foundation doesn’t want the word to be used, why continue?
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Kudos to the MacArthurs! This is like a new Nobel, more flexible, more interesting. May it last as long or longer than Alfred Nobel's.
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So happy to see Lynda Barry on the list!
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@Rax Me too! Her book “What It Is” is a masterpiece. I had the good fortune to take one of her classes up in Rhinebeck at the Omega Institute a few summers ago and it was absolutely mind opening. All assignments and exercises were done with pen and paper, her belief that creativity in part comes from the physicality of working by hand. Nary a computer to be found in that packed classroom. As she quipped while waggling her fingers before us: in the digital age, don’t forget to use your digits!
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Congratulations to all! But most especially to Ocean Vuong and Lynda Barry, whose work I love. Vuong’s novel & poetry book moved me so much, I’m urging it on everyone I know.
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Hurray for Lynda Barry! She’s been such an inspiration for many long years.
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What caught my eye:
"Emmanuel Pratt, 42, the co-founder and executive director of the Sweet Water Foundation, a community organization on the South Side of Chicago that has transformed abandoned buildings and vacant lots into a sustainable farm and cultural center, said he would use the fellowship to cover salaries and to help the group’s planned expansion into housing.
During the call with the foundation, he walked out into a field of sunflowers at Sweet Water’s 2-acre farm. “It was surreal,” he said.
Even beyond the money, he said, the MacArthur is a validation of the idea that there are alternatives to the kind of development-as-gentrification that reigns in Chicago and beyond.
“I don’t do the work to get recognition,” he said. “I do I because it’s a way of life. It’s proving that it’s not just possible, but that another way is already happening. It’s right here.”
Thinking of the red summer of 1919 (massive race riots/killings in Chicago) the sunflowers on (abandoned spaces) of the South Side are symbolic of the renaissance needed in impoverished and neglected communities. The glitter buildings long the Loop (yes, the Trump Tower as well) are to be shamed for Chicago's offensive power architecture that hides the neglect in so many other parts of the city.
I don't sing you, Chicago, the way you are. Yu need to do much better.
Emmanuel Pratt and the people he works with deserve this grant! I am moved by their civil commitment, their ingenious work for the common good!
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The recipients all seem unbelievably original, excited by their work and utterly worthy of this excellent grant. Kudos. This story made me so happy.
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I see a lot of bias in this selection. recipients west of the Mississippi numbered just 3 - 11.5%. Yet, that area contains about 41% of the entire population of the country. One could conclude that at least 8 more recipients should have been picked fro the western states.
What's newsworthy here is that the selection committee has all but completely ignored what the world's cradle of STEM development. There's development every day in Silicon Valley that exceeds the entire output of the entire list - comic book artist? give me a break.
It's time the MacArthur foundation modernizes its selection criterion or at least drops the term "Genius Grants".
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@William It's not their term, and the article clearly states. It's a nickname they do not want.
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@William Claims of bias would be better supported by examining the historical distribution of MacArthur grants -- not just those of a single year.
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@William Maybe if the "cradle of STEM" was more engaged in making the world a better place instead of monetizing humanity for every last drop they can squeeze regardless of consequences, you might see more fellows 'west of the Mississippi.'
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This makes my heart sing. For all the imperfections of the MacArthur grants, it's a wonderful recognition that people are doing important off the mainline life's work that shows the promise of a better world.
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Nice for the few. Canada has had a tradition of government sponsored grants for artists. We could learn from Canada. More would be encouraged.
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@David Henry
You think the government should pay artists who can't make it on their own?
Following that logic, should they pay for failed architects, engineers and doctors too?
3
@George Orwell "Failed" is your word.
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@George Orwell how many times did you turn down money from the government? I bet you always send that tax refund back. Thank goodness you don't run anything.
17
Congratulations to all the recipients.
I'm thrilled to see an award to the great artist Lynda Barry.
Thanks to her for the decades of beautiful work she's produced.
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The list of MacArthur awardees dovetails nicely with with today's piece by Thomas Edsall's about thriving blue state economies versus those of beleaguered red states.
New York, Massachusetts and California loom large on this list. There are a few purple states represented (NC and WI), but by in large the states that have nurtured their creative class are prospering. (Yes, perhaps the MacArthur committee is biased.)
Young people I know pay attention to this sort of thing. Those with choices are not choosing red states for college or career.
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@Cousy, It would be difficult to know if the MacArthur committee was biased. I was invited to nominate someone several years ago. I declined. The foundation had sent me its rules: Boiled down, they prohibit ANY communication with nominees or other people doing the nominating. The selection process is entirely secret, and I would have had to sign an agreement not to reveal my role in it. I would have had no idea whether my recommendation had any influence on the committee's choices. So, yes, you could easily infer that the winners are selected by an inner crew that likes blue state (read "big city") creatives, but there isn't any way to confirm that short of some MacArthur "deep throat" spilling the beans.
9
I don't think they have any real understanding of either creativity or genius, and certainly none whatsoever about music.
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@Grittenhouse- Have you listened to Mary Halvorson's music? I think it might shift your view (I.e., she's brilliant!)
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@Grittenhouse ah, yes, they should let you choose the music winners. Perhaps you can share with us who should have won instead of say, Mary Halvorson.
9
Trump isn’t sending ranting tweets denouncing the awards because he deserves one and did not get it ?
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@John Taylor: That's b/c there wasn't an 'unstable genius' category.
21
I'd highly question the 'genius' part of that.
7
Wonderful to see the wide cross section of people from all disciplines across several generations doing such great work
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The people at the MacArthur Foundation are not the only ones annoyed by the media's insistence on calling the MacArthur Fellowships "genius" grants. The word, "genius" is often used sarcastically these days, or employed by those ("I'm a very stable genius" ) who are most decidedly not. Is there another category of fellowships at the MacArthur Foundation? Another MacArthur Foundation granting fellowships? No? Drop "genius." Please.
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@Tamara I agree. How about simply "MacArthur grantee"?
8
Kudos to all of the recipients of the MacArthur grants for making our world better!
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