{"id":233429,"date":"2017-11-22T10:00:24","date_gmt":"2017-11-22T15:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/?p=233429"},"modified":"2023-11-08T20:56:18","modified_gmt":"2023-11-09T01:56:18","slug":"qa-with-harvards-maya-jasanoff-on-new-conrad-biography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2017\/11\/qa-with-harvards-maya-jasanoff-on-new-conrad-biography\/","title":{"rendered":"The world according to Conrad"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t
\"\"

"I\u2019m drawn to people who don\u2019t fit neatly into boxes," says Professor Maya Jasanoff about the subject of her new book, Joseph Conrad, pictured.<\/p>

Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\t

\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tArts & Culture\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\n\t\t

\n\t\tThe world according to Conrad\t<\/h1>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t
\n\t\t
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\n\t\tJill Radsken\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t

\n\t\t\tHarvard Staff Writer\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/address>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t

\n\t\t\tProfessor Maya Jasanoff embraced adventure to explore the mind behind \u2018Heart of Darkness\u2019 and other classics\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\n<\/header>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\t\t

Maya Jasanoff<\/em><\/a> has traveled in 70 countries, the 70th being the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which she visited last year to do research for her new book, <\/em>\u201cThe Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World.\u201d<\/em><\/a> Along with re-tracing Conrad\u2019s adventures along the Congo River, the Coolidge Professor of History spent four weeks aboard a French cargo ship, sailing between China and northern Europe in a time-travel-style effort to better appreciate the era in which her British-Polish subject lived and worked. <\/em><\/p>\n

Jasanoff\u2019s numerous honors include the <\/em>2017 Windham Campbell Prize for nonfiction<\/em> and the 2011 <\/em>National Book Critics Circle Award<\/em> for nonfiction for \u201cLiberty\u2019s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World.\u201d She spoke to the Gazette about her journey into the life of Conrad. <\/em><\/p>\n

GAZETTE: <\/strong>Why did you write this book?<\/p>\n

JASANOFF: <\/strong>I wanted to solve a problem for myself. I had worked a lot on the rise of the British Empire and I was interested in what its global reach was during its pinnacle of power, about a century ago. This is the world readers know best through poems like Kipling\u2019s \u201cThe White Man\u2019s Burden.\u201d But the greatest novel I had ever read, \u201cHeart of Darkness,\u201d offered a very different perspective on imperialism. As I thought of Conrad more, I wondered: How did the same guy who wrote about imperialism in Africa write about terrorism in London [\u201cThe Secret Agent\u201d]? How did the same guy who wrote about seafaring in so many novels write about capitalism in Latin America in \u201cNostromo\u201d? The puzzle was basically figuring out what Conrad\u2019s world looked like. It was very much at odds with that Pax Britannica image.<\/p>\n

GAZETTE: <\/strong>You re-traced the 1,000-mile journey Conrad made down the Congo River more than 100 years ago. Why was it important to take the trip?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

JASANOFF: <\/strong>Conrad wrote his books based very much on his experiences of the world as a sailor and immigrant, so I thought there was something important in capturing that experience of these things, especially his being a sailor for so long. Writing was a second career for him. He was a sailor until his 30s. I felt like I couldn\u2019t get insight into what made him tick without being on boats and at sea.<\/p>\n

With respect to \u201cHeart of Darkness,\u201d there\u2019s a lot of debate regarding the representation of Africa in that book, and discussion about whether he is generalizing grotesquely or capturing pretty specific historical realities. I felt one way to approach this question meant going to the place and putting the two theories in conversation with each other.<\/p>\n

As historians we can never meet our sources. We can never talk to them, see the world they lived in. The best we can do is see the fragments left behind. What\u2019s left behind is some of what\u2019s there today. It is a valuable source \u2014 seeing places you write about. I felt, in this case, it was doubly important.<\/p>\n\r\n\t\n\n\t

\"\"
"I wanted to write a book that wasn\u2019t a beginning-to-end chronological history told by an offstage narrator," said Harvard Professor Maya Jasanoff, who re-traced the 1,000-mile journey Joseph Conrad made down the Congo River.\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\n\t\r\n\n

GAZETTE: <\/strong>Conrad had to balance tension between his Eastern European upbringing and his life and work in the West, and sailed for some 20 years before settling down. Was the author\u2019s identity struggle appealing as a foundation of the book?<\/p>\n

JASANOFF: <\/strong>I\u2019m drawn to people who don\u2019t fit neatly into boxes. I wouldn\u2019t want to put him neatly in a box. … That said, he, like many who are dislocated, was constantly navigating where he\u2019d come from and where he\u2019d arrived. Many people respond by putting away the first identity; some do it by doubling down and rejecting the new identity; and a third option is to do both. I come from a family of immigrants \u2014 my mom\u2019s from India, my dad was born in America. How you fit identities together is something I\u2019m very interested in. From my own experience, it doesn\u2019t have a simple answer.<\/p>\n

Conrad went back to Poland later in life and stayed in touch with relatives \u2014 it was a real part of him. He never gave that up, yet he was proudly British. He married an Englishwoman. He went back and forth between them his whole life. It\u2019s one of the reasons he seems such a man of our times as much as his own. Today the largest foreign-born population in the U.K. is Poles. When Conrad was there, there were almost none.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

GAZETTE: <\/strong>\u201cThe Dawn Watch\u201d is part literary criticism, part history, and part travelogue. How challenging was it to write all three genres into one book?<\/p>\n

JASANOFF: <\/strong>I wanted to write a book that wasn\u2019t a beginning-to-end chronological history told by an offstage narrator. I moved across these registers, in part, to deal with the competing chronologies. In my last couple of books, I looked at a historical phenomenon through individual lives, but in this book I had a whole other layer in the form of the fiction. I had two versions of a lead character: the actor and the memoirist. In general, most narrative history gets written in a linear way with an omniscient narrator, but I took a cue from Conrad, who was used to telling stories in many voices, jumping around and making a mess of narrative lines. In a sense I wanted to follow Conrad\u2019s method a bit and give the reader a little credit. Having abrupt breaks and shifting perspectives would be fine because that\u2019s how we follow so many film and fiction narratives now.<\/p>\n

GAZETTE: <\/strong>What did you make of the sailor experiences \u2014 his and yours \u2014 that made their way into the book?<\/p>\n

JASANOFF: <\/strong>People have only lost the experience of sea travel in the last couple of generations. Until the 1960s, it\u2019s how everyone traveled. Even my own parents did. I became aware that everyone used to travel like that. Everyone I\u2019ve ever written about traveled like that. There are lots of recreational sailors today \u2014 though I had never learned to sail \u2014 but I realized that to understand Conrad I really needed to take a long sea voyage, not a recreational sailing trip. So I spent a month at sea. It gave me insight to how he wrote. Conrad has a very innovative narrative style, and it leaves you wondering, \u201cHow did he come up with that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Being on that ship for a month gave me insight into that. Sailors are known for spinning yarns and part of the reason for that is they spend all of this time in a very small, isolated community. The only way to bring in something from the outside is by telling stories about it. That really clicked for me in a way it wouldn\u2019t have if I hadn\u2019t gotten on that ship. I was also interested in how Conrad was involved in one of the foundations of our own globalized world. Nowadays sea travel is a lark, but maritime trade is happening more than ever before.<\/p>\n

Interview was edited and condensed.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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jasanoff\"],\"dateCreated\":\"2017-11-22T15:00:24Z\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-11-22T15:00:24Z\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-11-09T01:56:18Z\"}<\/script>","tracker_url":"https:\/\/cdn.parsely.com\/keys\/news.harvard.edu\/p.js"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/jconrad.jpg","has_blocks":true,"block_data":{"0":{"blockName":"harvard-gazette\/article-header","attrs":{"blockColorPalette":"","coloredHeading":"","creditText":"Wikimedia Commons","displayDetails":"","displayTitle":"","categoryId":1360,"mediaAlt":"","mediaCaption":"\"I\u2019m drawn to people who don\u2019t fit neatly into boxes,\" says Professor Maya Jasanoff about the subject of her new book, Joseph Conrad, pictured.","mediaId":233645,"mediaSize":"full","mediaType":"image","mediaUrl":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/jconrad.jpg","poster":"","title":"The world according to Conrad","subheading":"Professor Maya Jasanoff embraced adventure to explore the mind behind \u2018Heart of Darkness\u2019 and other classics","centeredImage":true,"className":"is-style-full-width-text-below","mediaHeight":403,"mediaWidth":605,"backgroundFixed":false,"backgroundTone":"light","coloredBackground":false,"displayOverlay":true,"fadeInText":false,"isAmbient":false,"mediaLength":"","mediaPosition":"","posterText":"","titleAbove":false,"useUncroppedImage":false,"lock":[],"metadata":[]},"innerBlocks":[],"innerHTML":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img alt=\"\" height=\"403\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/jconrad.jpg\" width=\"605\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><p class=\"wp-element-caption--caption\">"I\u2019m drawn to people who don\u2019t fit neatly into boxes," says Professor Maya Jasanoff about the subject of her new book, Joseph Conrad, pictured.<\/p><p class=\"wp-element-caption--credit\">Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","innerContent":["<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img alt=\"\" height=\"403\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/jconrad.jpg\" width=\"605\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><p class=\"wp-element-caption--caption\">"I\u2019m drawn to people who don\u2019t fit neatly into boxes," says Professor Maya Jasanoff about the subject of her new book, Joseph Conrad, pictured.<\/p><p class=\"wp-element-caption--credit\">Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n"],"rendered":"<header\n\tclass=\"wp-block-harvard-gazette-article-header alignfull article-header is-style-full-width-text-below centered-image\"\n\tstyle=\" \"\n>\n\t<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img alt=\"\" height=\"403\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/jconrad.jpg\" width=\"605\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><p class=\"wp-element-caption--caption\">"I\u2019m drawn to people who don\u2019t fit neatly into boxes," says Professor Maya Jasanoff about the subject of her new book, Joseph Conrad, pictured.<\/p><p class=\"wp-element-caption--credit\">Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\t<div class=\"article-header__content\">\n\t\t\t<a\n\t\t\tclass=\"article-header__category\"\n\t\t\thref=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/arts-humanities\/\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t\tArts & Culture\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\n\t\t<h1 class=\"article-header__title wp-block-heading \">\n\t\tThe world according to Conrad\t<\/h1>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t<div class=\"article-header__meta\">\n\t\t<div class=\"wp-block-post-author\">\n\t\t\t<address class=\"wp-block-post-author__content\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"author wp-block-post-author__name\">\n\t\tJill Radsken\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"wp-block-post-author__byline\">\n\t\t\tHarvard Staff Writer\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/address>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t<time class=\"article-header__date\" datetime=\"2017-11-22\">\n\t\t\tNovember 22, 2017\t\t<\/time>\n\n\t\t<span class=\"article-header__reading-time\">\n\t\t\t7 min read\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<h2 class=\"article-header__subheading wp-block-heading\">\n\t\t\tProfessor Maya Jasanoff embraced adventure to explore the mind behind \u2018Heart of Darkness\u2019 and other classics\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\n<\/header>\n"},"2":{"blockName":"core\/group","attrs":{"templateLock":false,"metadata":{"name":"Article content"},"align":"wide","layout":{"type":"constrained","justifyContent":"center"},"tagName":"div","lock":[],"className":"","style":[],"backgroundColor":"","textColor":"","gradient":"","fontSize":"","fontFamily":"","borderColor":"","ariaLabel":"","anchor":""},"innerBlocks":[{"blockName":"core\/freeform","attrs":{"content":"","lock":[],"metadata":[]},"innerBlocks":[],"innerHTML":"\n\t\t<p><a href=\"https:\/\/history.fas.harvard.edu\/people\/maya-jasanoff\"><em>Maya Jasanoff<\/em><\/a><em> has traveled in 70 countries, the 70th being the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which she visited last year to do research for her new book, <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.harpercollins.co.uk\/9780007553730\/the-dawn-watch\"><em>\u201cThe Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World.\u201d<\/em><\/a><em> Along with re-tracing Conrad\u2019s adventures along the Congo River, the Coolidge Professor of History spent four weeks aboard a French cargo ship, sailing between China and northern Europe in a time-travel-style effort to better appreciate the era in which her British-Polish subject lived and worked. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Jasanoff\u2019s numerous honors include the <\/em><em>2017 Windham Campbell Prize for nonfiction<\/em><em> and the 2011 <\/em><em>National Book Critics Circle Award<\/em><em> for nonfiction for \u201cLiberty\u2019s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World.\u201d She spoke to the Gazette about her journey into the life of Conrad. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE: <\/strong>Why did you write this book?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JASANOFF: <\/strong>I wanted to solve a problem for myself. I had worked a lot on the rise of the British Empire and I was interested in what its global reach was during its pinnacle of power, about a century ago. This is the world readers know best through poems like Kipling\u2019s \u201cThe White Man\u2019s Burden.\u201d But the greatest novel I had ever read, \u201cHeart of Darkness,\u201d offered a very different perspective on imperialism. As I thought of Conrad more, I wondered: How did the same guy who wrote about imperialism in Africa write about terrorism in London [\u201cThe Secret Agent\u201d]? How did the same guy who wrote about seafaring in so many novels write about capitalism in Latin America in \u201cNostromo\u201d? The puzzle was basically figuring out what Conrad\u2019s world looked like. It was very much at odds with that Pax Britannica image.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE: <\/strong>You re-traced the 1,000-mile journey Conrad made down the Congo River more than 100 years ago. Why was it important to take the trip?<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>JASANOFF: <\/strong>Conrad wrote his books based very much on his experiences of the world as a sailor and immigrant, so I thought there was something important in capturing that experience of these things, especially his being a sailor for so long. Writing was a second career for him. He was a sailor until his 30s. I felt like I couldn\u2019t get insight into what made him tick without being on boats and at sea.<\/p>\n<p>With respect to \u201cHeart of Darkness,\u201d there\u2019s a lot of debate regarding the representation of Africa in that book, and discussion about whether he is generalizing grotesquely or capturing pretty specific historical realities. I felt one way to approach this question meant going to the place and putting the two theories in conversation with each other.<\/p>\n<p>As historians we can never meet our sources. We can never talk to them, see the world they lived in. The best we can do is see the fragments left behind. What\u2019s left behind is some of what\u2019s there today. It is a valuable source \u2014 seeing places you write about. I felt, in this case, it was doubly important.<\/p>\n","innerContent":["\n\t\t<p><a href=\"https:\/\/history.fas.harvard.edu\/people\/maya-jasanoff\"><em>Maya Jasanoff<\/em><\/a><em> has traveled in 70 countries, the 70th being the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which she visited last year to do research for her new book, <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.harpercollins.co.uk\/9780007553730\/the-dawn-watch\"><em>\u201cThe Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World.\u201d<\/em><\/a><em> Along with re-tracing Conrad\u2019s adventures along the Congo River, the Coolidge Professor of History spent four weeks aboard a French cargo ship, sailing between China and northern Europe in a time-travel-style effort to better appreciate the era in which her British-Polish subject lived and worked. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Jasanoff\u2019s numerous honors include the <\/em><em>2017 Windham Campbell Prize for nonfiction<\/em><em> and the 2011 <\/em><em>National Book Critics Circle Award<\/em><em> for nonfiction for \u201cLiberty\u2019s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World.\u201d She spoke to the Gazette about her journey into the life of Conrad. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE: <\/strong>Why did you write this book?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JASANOFF: <\/strong>I wanted to solve a problem for myself. I had worked a lot on the rise of the British Empire and I was interested in what its global reach was during its pinnacle of power, about a century ago. This is the world readers know best through poems like Kipling\u2019s \u201cThe White Man\u2019s Burden.\u201d But the greatest novel I had ever read, \u201cHeart of Darkness,\u201d offered a very different perspective on imperialism. As I thought of Conrad more, I wondered: How did the same guy who wrote about imperialism in Africa write about terrorism in London [\u201cThe Secret Agent\u201d]? How did the same guy who wrote about seafaring in so many novels write about capitalism in Latin America in \u201cNostromo\u201d? The puzzle was basically figuring out what Conrad\u2019s world looked like. It was very much at odds with that Pax Britannica image.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE: <\/strong>You re-traced the 1,000-mile journey Conrad made down the Congo River more than 100 years ago. Why was it important to take the trip?<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>JASANOFF: <\/strong>Conrad wrote his books based very much on his experiences of the world as a sailor and immigrant, so I thought there was something important in capturing that experience of these things, especially his being a sailor for so long. Writing was a second career for him. He was a sailor until his 30s. I felt like I couldn\u2019t get insight into what made him tick without being on boats and at sea.<\/p>\n<p>With respect to \u201cHeart of Darkness,\u201d there\u2019s a lot of debate regarding the representation of Africa in that book, and discussion about whether he is generalizing grotesquely or capturing pretty specific historical realities. I felt one way to approach this question meant going to the place and putting the two theories in conversation with each other.<\/p>\n<p>As historians we can never meet our sources. We can never talk to them, see the world they lived in. The best we can do is see the fragments left behind. What\u2019s left behind is some of what\u2019s there today. It is a valuable source \u2014 seeing places you write about. I felt, in this case, it was doubly important.<\/p>\n"],"rendered":"\n\t\t<p><a href=\"https:\/\/history.fas.harvard.edu\/people\/maya-jasanoff\"><em>Maya Jasanoff<\/em><\/a><em> has traveled in 70 countries, the 70th being the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which she visited last year to do research for her new book, <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.harpercollins.co.uk\/9780007553730\/the-dawn-watch\"><em>\u201cThe Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World.\u201d<\/em><\/a><em> Along with re-tracing Conrad\u2019s adventures along the Congo River, the Coolidge Professor of History spent four weeks aboard a French cargo ship, sailing between China and northern Europe in a time-travel-style effort to better appreciate the era in which her British-Polish subject lived and worked. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Jasanoff\u2019s numerous honors include the <\/em><em>2017 Windham Campbell Prize for nonfiction<\/em><em> and the 2011 <\/em><em>National Book Critics Circle Award<\/em><em> for nonfiction for \u201cLiberty\u2019s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World.\u201d She spoke to the Gazette about her journey into the life of Conrad. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE: <\/strong>Why did you write this book?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JASANOFF: <\/strong>I wanted to solve a problem for myself. I had worked a lot on the rise of the British Empire and I was interested in what its global reach was during its pinnacle of power, about a century ago. This is the world readers know best through poems like Kipling\u2019s \u201cThe White Man\u2019s Burden.\u201d But the greatest novel I had ever read, \u201cHeart of Darkness,\u201d offered a very different perspective on imperialism. As I thought of Conrad more, I wondered: How did the same guy who wrote about imperialism in Africa write about terrorism in London [\u201cThe Secret Agent\u201d]? How did the same guy who wrote about seafaring in so many novels write about capitalism in Latin America in \u201cNostromo\u201d? The puzzle was basically figuring out what Conrad\u2019s world looked like. It was very much at odds with that Pax Britannica image.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE: <\/strong>You re-traced the 1,000-mile journey Conrad made down the Congo River more than 100 years ago. Why was it important to take the trip?<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>JASANOFF: <\/strong>Conrad wrote his books based very much on his experiences of the world as a sailor and immigrant, so I thought there was something important in capturing that experience of these things, especially his being a sailor for so long. Writing was a second career for him. He was a sailor until his 30s. I felt like I couldn\u2019t get insight into what made him tick without being on boats and at sea.<\/p>\n<p>With respect to \u201cHeart of Darkness,\u201d there\u2019s a lot of debate regarding the representation of Africa in that book, and discussion about whether he is generalizing grotesquely or capturing pretty specific historical realities. I felt one way to approach this question meant going to the place and putting the two theories in conversation with each other.<\/p>\n<p>As historians we can never meet our sources. We can never talk to them, see the world they lived in. The best we can do is see the fragments left behind. What\u2019s left behind is some of what\u2019s there today. It is a valuable source \u2014 seeing places you write about. I felt, in this case, it was doubly important.<\/p>\n"},{"blockName":"core\/image","attrs":{"sizeSlug":"full","align":"center","id":233618,"caption":"\"I wanted to write a book that wasn\u2019t a beginning-to-end chronological history told by an offstage narrator,\" said Harvard Professor Maya Jasanoff, who re-traced the 1,000-mile journey Joseph Conrad made down the Congo River.","blob":"","url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/maya-jasanoff-2_605.jpg","alt":"","lightbox":[],"title":"","href":"","rel":"","linkClass":"","width":"","height":"","aspectRatio":"","scale":"","linkDestination":"","linkTarget":"","lock":[],"metadata":[],"className":"","style":[],"borderColor":"","anchor":""},"innerBlocks":[],"innerHTML":"\n\n\t<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img src=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/maya-jasanoff-2_605.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-233618\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">"I wanted to write a book that wasn\u2019t a beginning-to-end chronological history told by an offstage narrator," said Harvard Professor Maya Jasanoff, who re-traced the 1,000-mile journey Joseph Conrad made down the Congo River.\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t","innerContent":["\n\n\t<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img src=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/maya-jasanoff-2_605.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-233618\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">"I wanted to write a book that wasn\u2019t a beginning-to-end chronological history told by an offstage narrator," said Harvard Professor Maya Jasanoff, who re-traced the 1,000-mile journey Joseph Conrad made down the Congo River.\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t"],"rendered":"\n\n\t<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img src=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/maya-jasanoff-2_605.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-233618\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">"I wanted to write a book that wasn\u2019t a beginning-to-end chronological history told by an offstage narrator," said Harvard Professor Maya Jasanoff, who re-traced the 1,000-mile journey Joseph Conrad made down the Congo River.\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t"},{"blockName":"core\/freeform","attrs":{"content":"","lock":[],"metadata":[]},"innerBlocks":[],"innerHTML":"\n<p><strong>GAZETTE: <\/strong>Conrad had to balance tension between his Eastern European upbringing and his life and work in the West, and sailed for some 20 years before settling down. Was the author\u2019s identity struggle appealing as a foundation of the book?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JASANOFF: <\/strong>I\u2019m drawn to people who don\u2019t fit neatly into boxes. I wouldn\u2019t want to put him neatly in a box. ... That said, he, like many who are dislocated, was constantly navigating where he\u2019d come from and where he\u2019d arrived. Many people respond by putting away the first identity; some do it by doubling down and rejecting the new identity; and a third option is to do both. I come from a family of immigrants \u2014 my mom\u2019s from India, my dad was born in America. How you fit identities together is something I\u2019m very interested in. From my own experience, it doesn\u2019t have a simple answer.<\/p>\n<p>Conrad went back to Poland later in life and stayed in touch with relatives \u2014 it was a real part of him. He never gave that up, yet he was proudly British. He married an Englishwoman. He went back and forth between them his whole life. It\u2019s one of the reasons he seems such a man of our times as much as his own. Today the largest foreign-born population in the U.K. is Poles. When Conrad was there, there were almost none.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE: <\/strong>\u201cThe Dawn Watch\u201d is part literary criticism, part history, and part travelogue. How challenging was it to write all three genres into one book?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JASANOFF: <\/strong>I wanted to write a book that wasn\u2019t a beginning-to-end chronological history told by an offstage narrator. I moved across these registers, in part, to deal with the competing chronologies. In my last couple of books, I looked at a historical phenomenon through individual lives, but in this book I had a whole other layer in the form of the fiction. I had two versions of a lead character: the actor and the memoirist. In general, most narrative history gets written in a linear way with an omniscient narrator, but I took a cue from Conrad, who was used to telling stories in many voices, jumping around and making a mess of narrative lines. In a sense I wanted to follow Conrad\u2019s method a bit and give the reader a little credit. Having abrupt breaks and shifting perspectives would be fine because that\u2019s how we follow so many film and fiction narratives now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE: <\/strong>What did you make of the sailor experiences \u2014 his and yours \u2014 that made their way into the book?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JASANOFF: <\/strong>People have only lost the experience of sea travel in the last couple of generations. Until the 1960s, it\u2019s how everyone traveled. Even my own parents did. I became aware that everyone used to travel like that. Everyone I\u2019ve ever written about traveled like that. There are lots of recreational sailors today \u2014 though I had never learned to sail \u2014 but I realized that to understand Conrad I really needed to take a long sea voyage, not a recreational sailing trip. So I spent a month at sea. It gave me insight to how he wrote. Conrad has a very innovative narrative style, and it leaves you wondering, \u201cHow did he come up with that?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Being on that ship for a month gave me insight into that. Sailors are known for spinning yarns and part of the reason for that is they spend all of this time in a very small, isolated community. The only way to bring in something from the outside is by telling stories about it. That really clicked for me in a way it wouldn\u2019t have if I hadn\u2019t gotten on that ship. I was also interested in how Conrad was involved in one of the foundations of our own globalized world. Nowadays sea travel is a lark, but maritime trade is happening more than ever before.<\/p>\n<p><em>Interview was edited and condensed.<\/em><\/p>\n","innerContent":["\n<p><strong>GAZETTE: <\/strong>Conrad had to balance tension between his Eastern European upbringing and his life and work in the West, and sailed for some 20 years before settling down. Was the author\u2019s identity struggle appealing as a foundation of the book?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JASANOFF: <\/strong>I\u2019m drawn to people who don\u2019t fit neatly into boxes. I wouldn\u2019t want to put him neatly in a box. ... That said, he, like many who are dislocated, was constantly navigating where he\u2019d come from and where he\u2019d arrived. Many people respond by putting away the first identity; some do it by doubling down and rejecting the new identity; and a third option is to do both. I come from a family of immigrants \u2014 my mom\u2019s from India, my dad was born in America. How you fit identities together is something I\u2019m very interested in. From my own experience, it doesn\u2019t have a simple answer.<\/p>\n<p>Conrad went back to Poland later in life and stayed in touch with relatives \u2014 it was a real part of him. He never gave that up, yet he was proudly British. He married an Englishwoman. He went back and forth between them his whole life. It\u2019s one of the reasons he seems such a man of our times as much as his own. Today the largest foreign-born population in the U.K. is Poles. When Conrad was there, there were almost none.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE: <\/strong>\u201cThe Dawn Watch\u201d is part literary criticism, part history, and part travelogue. How challenging was it to write all three genres into one book?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JASANOFF: <\/strong>I wanted to write a book that wasn\u2019t a beginning-to-end chronological history told by an offstage narrator. I moved across these registers, in part, to deal with the competing chronologies. In my last couple of books, I looked at a historical phenomenon through individual lives, but in this book I had a whole other layer in the form of the fiction. I had two versions of a lead character: the actor and the memoirist. In general, most narrative history gets written in a linear way with an omniscient narrator, but I took a cue from Conrad, who was used to telling stories in many voices, jumping around and making a mess of narrative lines. In a sense I wanted to follow Conrad\u2019s method a bit and give the reader a little credit. Having abrupt breaks and shifting perspectives would be fine because that\u2019s how we follow so many film and fiction narratives now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE: <\/strong>What did you make of the sailor experiences \u2014 his and yours \u2014 that made their way into the book?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JASANOFF: <\/strong>People have only lost the experience of sea travel in the last couple of generations. Until the 1960s, it\u2019s how everyone traveled. Even my own parents did. I became aware that everyone used to travel like that. Everyone I\u2019ve ever written about traveled like that. There are lots of recreational sailors today \u2014 though I had never learned to sail \u2014 but I realized that to understand Conrad I really needed to take a long sea voyage, not a recreational sailing trip. So I spent a month at sea. It gave me insight to how he wrote. Conrad has a very innovative narrative style, and it leaves you wondering, \u201cHow did he come up with that?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Being on that ship for a month gave me insight into that. Sailors are known for spinning yarns and part of the reason for that is they spend all of this time in a very small, isolated community. The only way to bring in something from the outside is by telling stories about it. That really clicked for me in a way it wouldn\u2019t have if I hadn\u2019t gotten on that ship. I was also interested in how Conrad was involved in one of the foundations of our own globalized world. Nowadays sea travel is a lark, but maritime trade is happening more than ever before.<\/p>\n<p><em>Interview was edited and condensed.<\/em><\/p>\n"],"rendered":"\n<p><strong>GAZETTE: <\/strong>Conrad had to balance tension between his Eastern European upbringing and his life and work in the West, and sailed for some 20 years before settling down. Was the author\u2019s identity struggle appealing as a foundation of the book?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JASANOFF: <\/strong>I\u2019m drawn to people who don\u2019t fit neatly into boxes. I wouldn\u2019t want to put him neatly in a box. ... That said, he, like many who are dislocated, was constantly navigating where he\u2019d come from and where he\u2019d arrived. Many people respond by putting away the first identity; some do it by doubling down and rejecting the new identity; and a third option is to do both. I come from a family of immigrants \u2014 my mom\u2019s from India, my dad was born in America. How you fit identities together is something I\u2019m very interested in. From my own experience, it doesn\u2019t have a simple answer.<\/p>\n<p>Conrad went back to Poland later in life and stayed in touch with relatives \u2014 it was a real part of him. He never gave that up, yet he was proudly British. He married an Englishwoman. He went back and forth between them his whole life. It\u2019s one of the reasons he seems such a man of our times as much as his own. Today the largest foreign-born population in the U.K. is Poles. When Conrad was there, there were almost none.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE: <\/strong>\u201cThe Dawn Watch\u201d is part literary criticism, part history, and part travelogue. How challenging was it to write all three genres into one book?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JASANOFF: <\/strong>I wanted to write a book that wasn\u2019t a beginning-to-end chronological history told by an offstage narrator. I moved across these registers, in part, to deal with the competing chronologies. In my last couple of books, I looked at a historical phenomenon through individual lives, but in this book I had a whole other layer in the form of the fiction. I had two versions of a lead character: the actor and the memoirist. In general, most narrative history gets written in a linear way with an omniscient narrator, but I took a cue from Conrad, who was used to telling stories in many voices, jumping around and making a mess of narrative lines. In a sense I wanted to follow Conrad\u2019s method a bit and give the reader a little credit. Having abrupt breaks and shifting perspectives would be fine because that\u2019s how we follow so many film and fiction narratives now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE: <\/strong>What did you make of the sailor experiences \u2014 his and yours \u2014 that made their way into the book?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JASANOFF: <\/strong>People have only lost the experience of sea travel in the last couple of generations. Until the 1960s, it\u2019s how everyone traveled. Even my own parents did. I became aware that everyone used to travel like that. Everyone I\u2019ve ever written about traveled like that. There are lots of recreational sailors today \u2014 though I had never learned to sail \u2014 but I realized that to understand Conrad I really needed to take a long sea voyage, not a recreational sailing trip. So I spent a month at sea. It gave me insight to how he wrote. Conrad has a very innovative narrative style, and it leaves you wondering, \u201cHow did he come up with that?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Being on that ship for a month gave me insight into that. Sailors are known for spinning yarns and part of the reason for that is they spend all of this time in a very small, isolated community. The only way to bring in something from the outside is by telling stories about it. That really clicked for me in a way it wouldn\u2019t have if I hadn\u2019t gotten on that ship. I was also interested in how Conrad was involved in one of the foundations of our own globalized world. Nowadays sea travel is a lark, but maritime trade is happening more than ever before.<\/p>\n<p><em>Interview was edited and condensed.<\/em><\/p>\n"}],"innerHTML":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignwide\">\n\n\r\n\t\n\t\r\n\n\n<\/div>\n","innerContent":["\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignwide\">\n\n","\r\n\t","\n\t\r\n","\n\n<\/div>\n"],"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignwide has-global-padding is-content-justification-center is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n\n\n\t\t<p><a href=\"https:\/\/history.fas.harvard.edu\/people\/maya-jasanoff\"><em>Maya Jasanoff<\/em><\/a><em> has traveled in 70 countries, the 70th being the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which she visited last year to do research for her new book, <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.harpercollins.co.uk\/9780007553730\/the-dawn-watch\"><em>\u201cThe Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World.\u201d<\/em><\/a><em> Along with re-tracing Conrad\u2019s adventures along the Congo River, the Coolidge Professor of History spent four weeks aboard a French cargo ship, sailing between China and northern Europe in a time-travel-style effort to better appreciate the era in which her British-Polish subject lived and worked. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Jasanoff\u2019s numerous honors include the <\/em><em>2017 Windham Campbell Prize for nonfiction<\/em><em> and the 2011 <\/em><em>National Book Critics Circle Award<\/em><em> for nonfiction for \u201cLiberty\u2019s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World.\u201d She spoke to the Gazette about her journey into the life of Conrad. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE: <\/strong>Why did you write this book?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JASANOFF: <\/strong>I wanted to solve a problem for myself. I had worked a lot on the rise of the British Empire and I was interested in what its global reach was during its pinnacle of power, about a century ago. This is the world readers know best through poems like Kipling\u2019s \u201cThe White Man\u2019s Burden.\u201d But the greatest novel I had ever read, \u201cHeart of Darkness,\u201d offered a very different perspective on imperialism. As I thought of Conrad more, I wondered: How did the same guy who wrote about imperialism in Africa write about terrorism in London [\u201cThe Secret Agent\u201d]? How did the same guy who wrote about seafaring in so many novels write about capitalism in Latin America in \u201cNostromo\u201d? The puzzle was basically figuring out what Conrad\u2019s world looked like. It was very much at odds with that Pax Britannica image.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE: <\/strong>You re-traced the 1,000-mile journey Conrad made down the Congo River more than 100 years ago. Why was it important to take the trip?<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>JASANOFF: <\/strong>Conrad wrote his books based very much on his experiences of the world as a sailor and immigrant, so I thought there was something important in capturing that experience of these things, especially his being a sailor for so long. Writing was a second career for him. He was a sailor until his 30s. I felt like I couldn\u2019t get insight into what made him tick without being on boats and at sea.<\/p>\n<p>With respect to \u201cHeart of Darkness,\u201d there\u2019s a lot of debate regarding the representation of Africa in that book, and discussion about whether he is generalizing grotesquely or capturing pretty specific historical realities. I felt one way to approach this question meant going to the place and putting the two theories in conversation with each other.<\/p>\n<p>As historians we can never meet our sources. We can never talk to them, see the world they lived in. The best we can do is see the fragments left behind. What\u2019s left behind is some of what\u2019s there today. It is a valuable source \u2014 seeing places you write about. I felt, in this case, it was doubly important.<\/p>\n\r\n\t\n\n\t<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img src=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/maya-jasanoff-2_605.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-233618\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">"I wanted to write a book that wasn\u2019t a beginning-to-end chronological history told by an offstage narrator," said Harvard Professor Maya Jasanoff, who re-traced the 1,000-mile journey Joseph Conrad made down the Congo River.\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\n\t\r\n\n<p><strong>GAZETTE: <\/strong>Conrad had to balance tension between his Eastern European upbringing and his life and work in the West, and sailed for some 20 years before settling down. Was the author\u2019s identity struggle appealing as a foundation of the book?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JASANOFF: <\/strong>I\u2019m drawn to people who don\u2019t fit neatly into boxes. I wouldn\u2019t want to put him neatly in a box. ... That said, he, like many who are dislocated, was constantly navigating where he\u2019d come from and where he\u2019d arrived. Many people respond by putting away the first identity; some do it by doubling down and rejecting the new identity; and a third option is to do both. I come from a family of immigrants \u2014 my mom\u2019s from India, my dad was born in America. How you fit identities together is something I\u2019m very interested in. From my own experience, it doesn\u2019t have a simple answer.<\/p>\n<p>Conrad went back to Poland later in life and stayed in touch with relatives \u2014 it was a real part of him. He never gave that up, yet he was proudly British. He married an Englishwoman. He went back and forth between them his whole life. It\u2019s one of the reasons he seems such a man of our times as much as his own. Today the largest foreign-born population in the U.K. is Poles. When Conrad was there, there were almost none.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE: <\/strong>\u201cThe Dawn Watch\u201d is part literary criticism, part history, and part travelogue. How challenging was it to write all three genres into one book?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JASANOFF: <\/strong>I wanted to write a book that wasn\u2019t a beginning-to-end chronological history told by an offstage narrator. I moved across these registers, in part, to deal with the competing chronologies. In my last couple of books, I looked at a historical phenomenon through individual lives, but in this book I had a whole other layer in the form of the fiction. I had two versions of a lead character: the actor and the memoirist. In general, most narrative history gets written in a linear way with an omniscient narrator, but I took a cue from Conrad, who was used to telling stories in many voices, jumping around and making a mess of narrative lines. In a sense I wanted to follow Conrad\u2019s method a bit and give the reader a little credit. Having abrupt breaks and shifting perspectives would be fine because that\u2019s how we follow so many film and fiction narratives now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE: <\/strong>What did you make of the sailor experiences \u2014 his and yours \u2014 that made their way into the book?<\/p>\n<p><strong>JASANOFF: <\/strong>People have only lost the experience of sea travel in the last couple of generations. Until the 1960s, it\u2019s how everyone traveled. Even my own parents did. I became aware that everyone used to travel like that. Everyone I\u2019ve ever written about traveled like that. There are lots of recreational sailors today \u2014 though I had never learned to sail \u2014 but I realized that to understand Conrad I really needed to take a long sea voyage, not a recreational sailing trip. So I spent a month at sea. It gave me insight to how he wrote. Conrad has a very innovative narrative style, and it leaves you wondering, \u201cHow did he come up with that?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Being on that ship for a month gave me insight into that. Sailors are known for spinning yarns and part of the reason for that is they spend all of this time in a very small, isolated community. The only way to bring in something from the outside is by telling stories about it. That really clicked for me in a way it wouldn\u2019t have if I hadn\u2019t gotten on that ship. I was also interested in how Conrad was involved in one of the foundations of our own globalized world. Nowadays sea travel is a lark, but maritime trade is happening more than ever before.<\/p>\n<p><em>Interview was edited and condensed.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n"}},"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":78043,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2011\/04\/fleeing-america\/","url_meta":{"origin":233429,"position":0},"title":"Fleeing America","author":"harvardgazette","date":"April 7, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"In \u201cLiberty\u2019s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World,\u201d historian Maya Jasanoff reveals the lesser-known history of loyalists after the Revolution.","rel":"","context":"In "Arts & Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Arts & Culture","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/arts-humanities\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/033011_jasanoff_123_605.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/033011_jasanoff_123_605.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/033011_jasanoff_123_605.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":47391,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2010\/05\/remarkable-teachers\/","url_meta":{"origin":233429,"position":1},"title":"\u2018Remarkable teachers\u2019","author":"harvardgazette","date":"May 27, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Historian Maya Jasanoff and chemist Tobias Ritter are this year\u2019s winners of the Roslyn Abramson Award, given annually to assistant or associate professors for excellence in undergraduate teaching.","rel":"","context":"In "Campus & Community"","block_context":{"text":"Campus & Community","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/campus-community\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/051010_abramson_award_119_605.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/051010_abramson_award_119_605.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/051010_abramson_award_119_605.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":356584,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2023\/04\/maya-jasanoff-in-conversation-with-novelist-nadifa-mohamed\/","url_meta":{"origin":233429,"position":2},"title":"Finding the truth in fiction","author":"harvardgazette","date":"April 10, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Somali-British novelist Nadifa Mohamed is a guest spearker at the Writers Speak series at the Mahindra Humanities Center and the History Seminar.","rel":"","context":"In "Arts & Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Arts & Culture","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/arts-humanities\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Nadifa Mohamed.","src":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Nadifa.Mohamed.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Nadifa.Mohamed.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Nadifa.Mohamed.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Nadifa.Mohamed.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":95944,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2011\/11\/jasanoffs-book-wins-honor\/","url_meta":{"origin":233429,"position":3},"title":"Jasanoff\u2019s book wins honor","author":"harvardgazette","date":"November 15, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Harvard History Professor Maya Jasanoff has been named the winner of a Recognition of Excellence Award as part of the 2011 Cundill Prize in History at McGill University for her book \u201cLiberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World.\u201d The prize recognizes history books that have a profound literary, social,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Campus & Community"","block_context":{"text":"Campus & Community","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/campus-community\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/033011_jasanoff_546_605.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/033011_jasanoff_546_605.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/033011_jasanoff_546_605.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":103193,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2012\/02\/historians-book-a-prize-finalist\/","url_meta":{"origin":233429,"position":4},"title":"Historian\u2019s book a prize finalist","author":"harvardgazette","date":"February 23, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Professor Maya Jasanoff is one of three finalists for the $50,000 George Washington Book Prize for \u201cLiberty\u2019s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World,\u201d published by Knopf.","rel":"","context":"In "Campus & Community"","block_context":{"text":"Campus & Community","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/campus-community\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/maya-jasanoff-300-dpi1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/maya-jasanoff-300-dpi1.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/maya-jasanoff-300-dpi1.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":104760,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2012\/03\/jasanoffs-liberty-recognized\/","url_meta":{"origin":233429,"position":5},"title":"Jasanoff’s ‘Liberty’ recognized","author":"harvardgazette","date":"March 9, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"On Thursday, the National Book Critics Circle recognized Harvard Professor Maya Jasanoff with its award for general nonfiction for \u201cLiberty\u2019s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary War\u201d (Knopf).","rel":"","context":"In "Campus & Community"","block_context":{"text":"Campus & Community","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/campus-community\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/jasanoff605.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/jasanoff605.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/jasanoff605.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/108352576"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233429"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":280269,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233429\/revisions\/280269"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233429"},{"taxonomy":"format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gazette-formats?post=233429"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=233429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}