Elaine Scarry (born June 30, 1946) is an American essayist and professor of English and American Literature and Language. She is the Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
. Her interests include Theory of Representation, the Language of Physical Pain, and Structure of Verbal and Material Making in Art, Science and the Law. She was formerly Professor of English at the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...
. She is a recipient of the
Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism The Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism is awarded for literary criticism by the University of Iowa on behalf of the Truman Capote Literary Trust. The value of the award is $30,000 (USD), and is said to be the largest annual cash prize for ...
.
Life
She is the author of ''The Body in Pain'' which is known as a definitive study of
pain
Pain is a distressing feeling often caused by intense or damaging stimuli. The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, ...
and
inflicting pain.
She argues that physical pain leads to destruction and the unmaking of the human world, whereas human creation at the opposite end of the spectrum leads to the making of the world.
In 1998, she delivered the essay 'On Beauty and Being Just', for the
Tanner Lectures on Human Values, an inquiry into the disparagement of beauty in western civilization in the twentieth century.
Her 1999 study, ''Dreaming by the Book'' won the
Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism The Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism is awarded for literary criticism by the University of Iowa on behalf of the Truman Capote Literary Trust. The value of the award is $30,000 (USD), and is said to be the largest annual cash prize for ...
.
In 2014, she published a book about
nuclear weapons
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...
, ''Thermonuclear Monarchy'', in which she 'explores the baleful political consequences of limiting the control of nuclear weapons to a select few, and the authority to launch them to even fewer – in the case of the United States, to the president alone in what amounts to his monarchical power.'
Hypotheses on plane crashes
In 1998, Elaine Scarry authored an article ''The Fall of
TWA 800
Trans World Airlines (TWA) was a major American airline which operated from 1930 until 2001. It was formed as Transcontinental & Western Air to operate a route from New York City to Los Angeles via St. Louis, Kansas City, and other stops, with F ...
: The Possibility of Electromagnetic Interference'' which appeared in ''
The New York Review of Books
''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...
''. The article's basic hypothesis – which does not enjoy support from most scientists or engineers – is that
electromagnetic interference
Electromagnetic interference (EMI), also called radio-frequency interference (RFI) when in the radio frequency spectrum, is a disturbance generated by an external source that affects an electrical circuit by electromagnetic induction, electrost ...
from a
P-3 Orion
The Lockheed P-3 Orion is a four-engined, turboprop Anti-submarine warfare, anti-submarine and maritime patrol aircraft, maritime surveillance aircraft developed for the United States Navy and introduced in the 1960s. Lockheed Corporation, Lockh ...
aircraft may have been responsible for the center fuel tank explosion during that flight in 1996. Scarry subsequently published another article hypothesizing that another plane crash, that of
EgyptAir 990
EgyptAir Flight 990 (MS990/MSR990) was a regularly scheduled flight from Los Angeles International Airport to Cairo International Airport, with a stop at John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City. On October 31, 1999, the Boeing 767-3 ...
, was caused by electromagnetic interference of the type that could result from transmission from a military source in the vicinity of the crash. This article, entitled "The Fall of EgyptAir 990", was also published in ''The New York Review of Books'' on October 5, 2000. In a critique of Professor Scarry's hypothesis, Professor Didier de Fontaine, Professor Emeritus at
UC Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...
, discusses what he views as the less than scientific basis of Scarry's "unfriendly skies" scenarios, and concludes that she has engaged in "voodoo science".
Education
* A.B., 1968,
Chatham College
Chatham University is a private university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Originally founded as a women's college, it began enrolling men in undergraduate programs in 2015. It enrolls about 2,110 students, including 1,002 undergraduate students ...
* A.M., Ph.D., 1974,
University of Connecticut
The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from H ...
Honors
*
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the art ...
(1987), Philosophy
*
Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism The Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism is awarded for literary criticism by the University of Iowa on behalf of the Truman Capote Literary Trust. The value of the award is $30,000 (USD), and is said to be the largest annual cash prize for ...
(2000) for ''Dreaming by the Book''
* Elected Member,
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
(2013)
*
Honorary doctorate
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...
from
Uppsala University
Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation.
The university rose to significance during ...
,
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...
(2018)
Works
Books
*
*
*
*
*
* ''On Beauty and Being Just'', Princeton University Press, 1999,
*
*
* ''Literature and the Body: Essays on Populations and Persons'', Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990,
*
Essays
''The Fall of EgyptAir 990''(The New York Review of Books, 2000)
''The Fall of TWA 800: The Possibility of Electromagnetic Interference''(The New York Review of Books, 1998)
* On Beauty and Being Just
Editor
*
* ''Fins de Siècle: English Poetry in 1590, 1690, 1790, 1890, 1990'', Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995,
References
External links
* New York Review of Books
Elaine ScarryProfile in The Chronicle of Higher Educationby
Nathan Schneider
Nathan Schneider (born 1984) is a scholar, activist, and journalist. Since 2015, he has been a professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Writing on religion
Much of Schneider's early work concerned the interrelation of ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Scarry, Elaine
1946 births
Harvard University faculty
University of Connecticut alumni
Chatham University alumni
Living people
American academics of English literature
American literary theorists
Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
American women essayists
20th-century American essayists
20th-century American women writers
21st-century American essayists
21st-century American women writers
Members of the American Philosophical Society
American women academics