Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Netherlands
fellow
Ed Schwarzschild
2023-2024
Home institution
University at Albany; State University of New York
Country of origin (home institution)
United States
Discipline(s)
Literature
Sociology
Theme(s)
Contemporary violence & Justice
Labor, Capital & Innovation
Fellowship dates
›
Biography
Edward is a NIAS Theme Group fellow (Re-imagining Security Labour) during 2023-2024.
Edward Schwarzschild is the author of three works of fiction—In Security, The Family Diamond, and Responsible Men. His new book, Job/Security, is a documentary collaboration with the photographer Danny Goodwin.
Schwarzschild has been a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford, a NYFA Fellow in Fiction, a Fulbright Scholar in Spain, a Fiction Meets Science Writer-in-Residence at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg in Delmenhorst, Germany, and, most recently, a fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study.
His stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in The Guardian, The Believer, The Washington Post, Tin House, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Yale Journal of Criticism, and elsewhere.
Schwarzschild’s interest in reading and writing about the American security industry began when he worked for a few months as a Transportation Security Officer-in-training at Albany International Airport. His essay about the experience first appeared at Hazlitt.net and was then published in The Guardian.
Schwarzschild is currently Professor of English, Director of Creative Writing, and Fellow of the New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany, SUNY.
Research Project
Stories of Security at Work
How can a deeper understanding of individuals in the security labor force shape the future of security work? There are myriad examples of how, in general, descriptions of security labour in the media tend to villainize or heroize the workers, criticising them as lazy and uneducated, or, celebrating them as patriotic and brave. This NIAS Theme Group will bring their own deeply informed practices and varied viewpoints regarding the global security enterprise to our collaborative investigation.
As coordinator of the theme group, Ed Schwarzschild aims to begin to reveal and organise the stories government-related security labourers around the world tell themselves and others about their working lives. Creating, organising and writing about an archive of these first-person narratives will lead to insights that can help illuminate and analyse this growing sector of our society.
Research Interests:
Security labor narratives; worker self-representation; occupational identity; ethnography of security work
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