Prof. Ruth Wilson Gilmore in Prospect Magazine’s list of “The World’s Top 50 Thinkers”

The World’s Top 50 Thinkers © Rich Fairhead/Prospect

EES faculty, Dr. Ruth Wilson Gilmore(GC) has been named to the list of “The World’s Top 50 Thinkers” by Prospect Magazine.

As “Prospect” revisits the task of identifying the leading minds of the moment, in the intellectual hit parade which we have produced in varying formats since 2004, that test of immediate and real-world relevance looms large. As we compiled our long list—drawing on the advice of distinguished experts in various fields who have written for us over the years—and then whittled it down towards 50, we were struck by how different the list looked from 2019’s. It was at the point where we had around 35 confirmed names that we noticed not one of them was a holdover.

“Could we live in a world without prisons? For lifelong abolitionist Ruth Wilson Gilmore, the answer is an emphatic yes. A seasoned campaigner against the “prison-industrial complex,” who now works in academia, Gilmore has spent the best part of 30 years developing the field of carceral geography: the study of the interrelationships across space, institutions, and political economy that shape and define modern incarceration. She’s helped shift the conversation about responses to crime from one of punishment to rehabilitation. As the failings of the US justice system come once again to the fore, Gilmore’s radical ideas have never felt more relevant.”
Read more here.