ACLS New Faculty Fellows Program 2010
American Studies and Africana Studies
Dickinson College
PhD, American Studies, Yale University appointed in American Studies and Africana Studies at Dickinson College

Dissertation: "Infrahumanisms: Race, Nation, and the Moral Economy of Embodiment in 20th Century US Culture"

Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowships 2007
Doctoral Candidate
American Studies
Yale University
Infrahumanisms: Race, Nation, and the Moral Economy of Embodiment in Twentieth-Century US Culture

At once an intellectual, cultural, and scientific history of humanness in the twentieth century, this dissertation is organized around a conceptual framework labeled “infrahumanism,” defined as the intersection of biological constructions of humanness, the socio-cultural symbolic weight of the human/animal boundary, and the anthropocentrism of rational humanist philosophy. Temporally, the project spans from 1914 to 2008; topically, it touches upon eugenic science, the construction of modern childhood, the emergence of primatology, the effects of nuclear technology, human experimentation, the rise of astrobiology, fetal rights, AIDS and other zoonotic (cross-species) diseases, disability legislature, and the Human Genome Project.