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Scholars & Public Intellectuals
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Author 33
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Psychologist 7
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19 people
William James 1842–1910Scholars & Public IntellectualsFounded American psychology as a discipline and shaped pragmatist philosophy at Harvard.
Elie Wiesel 1928–2016Scholars & Public IntellectualsHolocaust survivor, author of Night, and Nobel Peace laureate
Angela Davis b. 1944Scholars & Public IntellectualsPolitical activist and academic whose scholarship on race, class, and prisons became globally influential.
Edward Said 1935–2003Scholars & Public IntellectualsHis 1978 book Orientalism argued that Western knowledge of the East was built inside imperial power, and it remade several humanities fields.
Paul Samuelson 1915–2009Scholars & Public IntellectualsFirst American to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, whose textbook defined the field for decades.
Franz Boas 1858–1942Scholars & Public IntellectualsFounded American academic anthropology and argued against racial determinism from Columbia University.Richard Hofstadter 1916–1970Scholars & Public IntellectualsHistorian who named the paranoid style in American politics and won two Pulitzer Prizes, for The Age of Reform and Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.
Frederick Jackson Turner 1861–1932Scholars & Public IntellectualsThe frontier thesis — the most influential and most attacked argument in American history.
Carter G. Woodson 1875–1950Scholars & Public IntellectualsFounder of Negro History Week and the Journal of Negro History
Harold Bloom 1930–2019Scholars & Public IntellectualsArgued that great poems are deliberate misreadings of earlier ones, then fought the canon wars in public.
Lawrence Summers b. 1954Scholars & Public IntellectualsEconomist, Treasury Secretary, and president of Harvard
Richard Posner b. 1939Scholars & Public IntellectualsJudge and legal scholar who put economics at the centre of American law
Robert Solow 1924–2023Scholars & Public IntellectualsMeasured economic growth and found that most of it comes from technological progress, not capital.
bell hooks 1952–2021Scholars & Public IntellectualsFeminist scholar and cultural critic whose writings on race, gender, and class transformed critical theory.
Judith Butler b. 1956Scholars & Public IntellectualsPhilosopher whose work on gender performativity reshaped feminist and queer theory worldwide.
Kimberlé Crenshaw b. 1959Scholars & Public IntellectualsLegal scholar who coined the term intersectionality, reshaping understandings of overlapping discrimination.
Lawrence Lessig b. 1961Scholars & Public IntellectualsHarvard Law professor and activist who founded Creative Commons and campaigns against political corruption.
Glenn Loury b. 1948Scholars & Public IntellectualsBrown University economist whose work on race, inequality, and social policy bridges left and right.
Amy Wax b. 1953Scholars & Public IntellectualsUniversity of Pennsylvania law professor whose controversial writings on culture and immigration sparked national debate.