{"id":60831,"date":"2021-06-03T19:02:57","date_gmt":"2021-06-03T19:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=60831"},"modified":"2021-06-07T14:54:34","modified_gmt":"2021-06-07T14:54:34","slug":"book-review-a-cosmologist-throws-light-on-a-universe-of-bias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=60831","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: A Cosmologist Throws Light on a Universe of Bias"},"content":{"rendered":"

Book Review: A Cosmologist Throws Light on a Universe of Bias<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Undark<\/a>
\n2021-04-16<\/p>\n

Joshua Roebke<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nTop: Chanda Prescod-Weinstein<\/a> is an award-winning physicist,\u2060 feminist, activist, and the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D. in the field of theoretical cosmology. Visual: Courtesy Chanda Prescod-Weinstein<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

In \u201cThe Disordered Cosmos<\/a>,\u201d Chanda Prescod-Weinstein<\/a> contemplates the exclusionary culture of physics.<\/em><\/p>\n

EVERY COMMUNITY GUARDS a creation story<\/a>, a theory of cosmic origins. In much of sub-Saharan West Africa<\/a>, for the past few thousand years, itinerant storytellers known as griots have communicated these and other tales through song. Cosmologists<\/a> also intone a theory of cosmic origins, known as the Big Bang<\/a>, albeit through journal articles and math.<\/p>\n

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein<\/a> is a cosmologist who is adept with both equations and \u201cthe keeper of a deeply human impulse\u201d to understand our universe. In her first book, \u201cThe Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, & Dreams Deferred<\/a>\u2060,\u201d Prescod-Weinstein also admits she is a griot<\/a>, one who knows the music of the cosmos but sings of earthbound concerns. She is an award-winning physicist,\u2060 feminist, and activist who is not only, as she says, the first Jewish \u201cqueer agender Black woman\u2060\u201d to become a theoretical cosmologist<\/a>, she is the first Black woman ever to earn a Ph.D. in the subject.<\/p>\n

Prescod-Weinstein is an assistant professor of physics and astronomy, and a core faculty member in the department of women\u2019s and gender studies at the University of New Hampshire. She thus enjoys a unique frame of reference from which to appraise science and her fellow scientists. She is an insider whom others nonetheless cast as an outsider, because of her identity, orientation, and the tint of her skin. From the outside, however, she admits a fuller view of her field. She perceives the \u201cstructures that were invisible to people,\u201d\u2060 and reveals them…<\/p>\n

Read the entire review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In \u201cThe Disordered Cosmos,\u201d Chanda Prescod-Weinstein contemplates the exclusionary culture of physics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,5,8],"tags":[21524,31453,31452],"class_list":["post-60831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-book-reviews","category-media-archive","tag-chanda-prescod-weinstein","tag-joshua-roebke","tag-undark"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60831"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60879,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60831\/revisions\/60879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}