"It is a huge loss to a whole constellation of interleaving scholarly communities. "I am gutted by the passing of Lauren Berlant," said friend Jonathan Sterne in a Facebook post. Fight for better working conditions for your non-tenured track faculty." Speak up for the researcher from an underrepresented group who is also working on an underrepresented topic do not let your colleagues write them off because they are not working in a prestige area. If there is a good candidate who is a version of queer that your colleagues are not used to yet stand up for them. If you are a tenured faculty member, volunteer for a hard committee so a pre-tenured faculty member does not have to. I mean be willing to take a personal prestige hit for something or someone you believe in. I do not mean giving to the local food bank, although by all means do. "If you are in a position of power or privilege and not in a position of precarity, then I can think of no better way to celebrate Lauren's life, work and values, than to be willing to risk some of that privilege for those whose lives are more precarious. I ask that people do their best to find what is right in a given context.
"Especially in contexts where the professional and the familiar are not always sharply distinguished, it can be hard to know which of her preferences to honor. "In the last few years, Lauren adopted they as a pronoun for their public-facing, scholarly interactions, while continuing to use she elsewhere," said Horswill in separate Facebook post. In a Facebook post, Horswill thanked Berlant's UChicago Medicine medical team and the family members and friends who lent their support.
They were preceded in death by their father Nathan Berlant and mother Joanne (Bauer) Berlant. Berlant also was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for the last three years of their life.Īdditionally, Berlant co-founded the Feel Tank Chicago in 2002 and co-edited Duke University Press' Theory Q series.īerlant was survived by their partner of 19 years, Northwestern University Department of Computer Science associate professor Ian Horswill sister Valerie (Berlant) Davis and spouse Richard Davis brother Jeffrey Berlant nephews and niecesZachary Davis, Mara Davis, Cynthia (Berlant) Grell, Alison Berlant and Michael Berlant cats Ru and Chi and countless friends. They also received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the American Comparative Literature Association René Wellek Prize for Cruel Optimism and the Modern Language Association's Alan Bray Memorial Book Award and Hubbell Medal for Lifetime Achievement. They were known for teaching and writing about queer theory, heternormativity, the intimate public sphere and feminism among other issues.Īmong Berlant's many honors were three from the University of ChicagoQuantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, a Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching and Mentoring and the Norman Maclean Faculty Award.
Their award-winning book, Cruel Optimism (2011), "analyzed the devices that affect everyday human connections, and how the culturally conditioned material regard for the perfect life compels human beings to act against their own best interests," according to a University of Chicago News article honoring Berlant's life.īerlant also authored scholarly papers that are currently located at Brown University's Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women's Feminist Theory Archive. While teaching Berlant wrote/co-wrote eight books and edited/co-edited four collections. Pullman Distinguished Professor of English. They taught at the University of Chicago from 1984-2021 where they were the George M. 31, 1957 in Philadelphia and graduated from Oberlin College with a BA in English and subsequently received their master's degree and PhD from Cornell University. They were 63.īerlant (who used they/them pronouns professionally) was born Oct. This article shared 2063 times since Thu Jul 15, 2021Īuthor, cultural theorist and scholar Lauren Berlant died June 28 in a Chicago hospice facility of a rare form of cancer.