特雷西-麦克米伦-科特姆 社会学家、作家和公共学者

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Tressie McMillan Cottom
Sociologist, Writer, and Public Scholar | Class of 2020
Shaping discourse on highly topical issues at the confluence of race, gender, education, and digital technology for broad audiences.


Portrait of Tressie McMillan Cottom

Title
Sociologist, Writer, and Public Scholar
Affiliation
School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina / Chapel Hill
Location
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Age
43 at time of award
Area of Focus
Sociology, Fiction and Nonfiction Writing
Website
tressiemc.com
University of North Carolina: Tressie McMillan Cottom
Social
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
Published October 6, 2020
ABOUT TRESSIE'S WORK
Tressie McMillan Cottom is a sociologist, writer, and public scholar shaping discourse on pressing issues at the confluence of race, gender, education, and digital technology. In work across multiple platforms, ranging from academic scholarship to essays and social media engagement, McMillan Cottom combines analytical insights and personal experiences in a frank, accessible style of communication that resonates with broad audiences within and outside of academia.

In her book-length study of for-profit colleges, Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy (2017), McMillan Cottom explores the rapid growth of these institutions in the context of rising inequality in the United States. She examines the industry from multiple perspectives, including her experience as an admissions counselor at a for-profit college and the motives and goals of students from a variety of backgrounds who attend these institutions. Her analysis identifies the systemic conditions supporting the predatory marketing behavior in the for-profit college industry, including the limited accessibility of public institutions, discrimination in credit markets, and the increased necessity of academic credentials for securing a prosperous future. The book has reverberated amongst educators and policymakers and has influenced recent policy debates about the racial, gender, and class inequalities of educational institutions. McMillan Cottom’s most recent book, THICK: And Other Essays (2019), is a collection of essays that offer a powerful treatise on the perilous cultural space occupied by Black women in America. The book’s title references both a colloquial descriptor of a female body type and the sociological concept of “thick description”—ethnographic research providing extensive details on context and social relationships to explain behavior. This double meaning of “thick” permeates the essays, which contain deeply personal meditations on the narrow lens through which Black women are viewed in American society, racial inequities in doctor-patient relationships, and the complexities of intragroup relations among people of African descent, among others.

McMillan Cottom also writes shorter-form pieces for more mainstream media outlets addressing topics ranging from access to higher education to why people with low income buy luxury goods, and she is known as an intellectual leader on Black Twitter. In addition, she has co-launched a Black feminist podcast, Hear to Slay, which provides a forum for presenting and discussing intersectional perspectives on modern culture. With humor, honesty, and erudition, McMillan Cottom is providing a new model for researchers and scholars to bring their findings and insights to bear on highly complex topics that animate contemporary cultural conversations.

BIOGRAPHY
Tressie McMillan Cottom holds a BA (2009) from North Carolina Central University and a PhD (2015) from Emory University. In July 2020, she joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina as an associate professor in the School of Library and Information Science and senior research faculty in the Center for Information, Technology and Public Life. She was affiliated with the Department of Sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University from 2015 to 2020 and has been a faculty affiliate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University since 2015. McMillan Cottom’s additional publications include the edited volumes Digital Sociologies (2016) and For-Profit Universities: The Shifting Landscape of Marketized Higher Education (2017), and she has been a contributor to Slate, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and Inside Higher Ed.

IN TRESSIE'S WORDS
TressieCottom:"Mylife’screativechallengeiswieldingthetensionbetweenpowerfulnarrativeandcompellingdatatocenterBlackintellectuallivesascraftandmethod."


Public life is just a story that has been written to justify some atrocities as natural and some lives as disposable. When I say that I write stories to make problems for power, I mean that I rewrite the metaphors we use to rationalize big inequalities in the small decisions that make up our everyday lives—how we go to school, how we work, how we consume and how we love. My life’s creative challenge is wielding the tension between powerful narrative and compelling data to center Black intellectual lives as craft and method. “Radically better metaphors for a radically better public life.”



特雷西-麦克米伦-科特姆
社会学家、作家和公共学者 | 2020级
在种族、性别、教育和数字技术的交汇处，为广大观众塑造关于高度热门问题的话语。


特雷西-麦克米伦-科托姆的画像

标题
社会学家、作家和公共学者
工作单位
北卡罗来纳大学/教堂山分校信息与图书馆科学学院
工作地点
北卡罗来纳州教堂山
年龄
获奖时43岁
重点领域
社会学, 小说和非小说写作
网站
tressiemc.com
北卡罗来纳大学。特雷西-麦克米伦-科特姆
社会
脸书
脸谱网
推特
发表于2020年10月6日
关于特雷西的工作
Tressie McMillan Cottom是一位社会学家、作家和公共学者，在种族、性别、教育和数字技术的交汇处对紧迫问题进行讨论。在跨越多个平台的工作中，从学术研究到散文和社交媒体参与，麦克米伦-科特姆将分析性见解和个人经历结合起来，以坦率、易懂的交流风格，引起了学术界内外广大受众的共鸣。

在她关于营利性大学的长篇研究报告《Lower Ed: McMillan Cottom在《新经济中令人不安的营利性学院的崛起》（2017年）一书中，探讨了在美国不平等加剧的背景下这些机构的快速发展。她从多个角度研究了这个行业，包括她作为营利性大学的招生顾问的经历，以及来自不同背景的学生参加这些机构的动机和目标。她的分析指出了支持营利性大学行业掠夺性营销行为的系统性条件，包括公共机构的有限可及性、信贷市场的歧视，以及为确保繁荣的未来而增加的学术证书的必要性。该书在教育工作者和政策制定者中引起了反响，并影响了最近关于教育机构的种族、性别和阶级不平等的政策辩论。麦克米兰-科特姆最近的著作《厚重：及其他随笔》（2019）是一本随笔集，对美国黑人妇女所占据的危险文化空间进行了有力的论述。该书的标题既参考了女性体型的口语描述，也参考了 "厚重描述 "的社会学概念--人种学研究提供了关于背景和社会关系的广泛细节来解释行为。这种 "厚 "的双重含义渗透到文章中，其中包含了对美国社会看待黑人妇女的狭窄视角、医患关系中的种族不平等以及非洲裔人之间复杂的群体关系等问题的深刻个人思考。

麦克米兰-科特姆还为更多的主流媒体撰写短篇文章，探讨从接受高等教育到低收入者为何购买奢侈品等话题，她被称为黑人推特上的知识领袖。此外，她还与人合作推出了一个黑人女权主义播客，"听我说"，为介绍和讨论现代文化的交叉观点提供一个论坛。麦克米伦-科特姆以幽默、诚实和博学的方式，为研究人员和学者提供了一个新的模式，使他们的研究结果和洞察力能够影响到高度复杂的当代文化对话。

个人简历
特雷西-麦克米伦-科特姆拥有北卡罗来纳中央大学的学士学位（2009年）和埃默里大学的博士学位（2015年）。2020年7月，她加入北卡罗来纳大学，担任图书馆和信息科学学院的副教授以及信息、技术和公共生活中心的高级研究教师。2015年至2020年，她隶属于弗吉尼亚联邦大学社会学系，自2015年以来，她一直是哈佛大学伯克曼-克莱因互联网与社会中心的教员。麦克米伦-科特姆的其他出版物包括编辑的《数字社会学》（2016）和《营利性大学》。她是《Slate》、《The Atlantic》、《The Washington Post》和《Inside Higher Ed》的撰稿人。

特雷西的话
TressieCottom: "我生活中的创造性挑战是在强大的叙事和令人信服的数据之间游刃有余，这也是黑人知识分子的生活方式"。


公共生活只是一个被写成的故事，以证明一些暴行是自然的，一些生命是可支配的。当我说我写故事是为了给权力制造问题时，我的意思是，我改写了我们用来合理化构成我们日常生活的小决定中的大不平等的隐喻--我们如何上学，如何工作，如何消费和如何爱。我一生的创造性挑战是挥舞强有力的叙述和令人信服的数据之间的张力，将黑人的知识生活作为工艺和方法的中心。"从根本上改善公共生活的隐喻"。