Claudia Rankine, Kellie Jones and Joyce J. Scott Awarded MacArthur Genius Grants.

MacArthur Genius Grants, Claudia Rankine, Kellie Jones, Joyce J. Scott

Poet and essayist Claudia Rankine, jewelry maker and sculptor Joyce J. Scott, and art historian Kellie Jones are among this year’s MacArthur Genius Grant winners.

Rankine, who also serves as a Professor of Poetry at Yale University, is best known for her works Don’t Let Me Be Lonely (2004) and Citizen (2014), both subtitled “An American Lyric,” as well as her critical essays on race in a America.


Scott uses her art, beadwork in particular, to confront the America’s complex and brutal history with race as well as to comment on injustice and equality.



Jones, an associate professor at Columbia University’s Department of Art History and Archaeology conducts extensive research on the work of African-American artists and works to bring the work of lesser known black artists to wider audiences.