Discipline: Literature

Micki McGee

Discipline: Literature
Region: New York, NY
MacDowell Fellowships: 1989
Micki McGee is a sociologist, curator, and cultural critic whose work concerns itself with American culture — from the cults of self-improvement to the clusters of creative communities to the emergence of the autism parenting and neurodiversity communities. Her critically-acclaimed monograph, Self-Help, Inc: Makeover Culture in American Life (Oxford University Press, 2005), examines America's burgeoning culture of self-improvement. Self-Help, Inc. has been widely reviewed and discussed in national and international publications including Le Monde Diplomatique, The New Statesman, Newsweek, Salon.com, the American Journal of Sociology, American Quarterly, and Social Forces. Along with Barbara Ehrenreich, James M. Coyne, Barbara Held, and Richard P. Sloan, Micki is a founder of the Negateers , an informal group that has been battling the bias toward positive thinking since 2008. In 2006 Dr. McGee began research on the impact of Yaddo, the renowned artists' and writers' retreat, on twentieth-century American culture. This project resulted in Yaddo: Making American Culture (Columbia UP, 2008) and a New York Public Library exhibition that that drew more than half a million visitors during its run.

Studios

Schelling

Micki McGee worked in the Schelling studio.

Marian MacDowell funded construction of this studio the year that the organization was established and the first artists arrived for residency. It was called Bark Studio until 1933, when it was renamed in honor of Ernest Schelling, a composer, pianist, and orchestral leader who served as president of what was then called the Edward MacDowell…

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