Biology, History

Nancy G. Siraisi a MacArthur “Genius”

jacket imagePress author Nancy G. Siraisi, a Brooklyn-based medical historian, is one of the twenty-five new fellows announced this morning by the MacArthur Foundation. The MacArthur Fellowships, known as “genius grants,” provide each recipient with $500,000 over five years, no strings attached. MacArthur’s widely reported announcement noted that the grants “offer the opportunity for Fellows to accelerate their current activities or take their work in new directions.”
They are intended to celebrate “extraordinarily creative individuals who inspire new heights in human achievement,” MacArthur President Jonathan Fanton said in an announcement on the foundation’s Web site. Siraisi, for her part, “continues to provide contributions to the evolving scholarly understanding of medical history and, specifically, Renaissance intellectual history.” In Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice, for example, she explores the inner workings of the medical community and illustrates the connections of medicine to both natural philosophy and technical skills.
As we congratulate Nancy Siraisi, we proudly add her name to the growing list of Press authors who have received the genius grant, including Stuart Dybek, a 2007 MacAurthur Fellow; George Lewis, a 2002 fellow whose book A Power Stronger Than Itself we published earlier this year; Danielle Allen, author of Talking to Strangers; and David Shulman, whose new Spring, Heat, Rains the Press will publish in November.