Parsons named Soros Justice Fellow by the Open Society Foundation
by Chris Boyer
Anne Parsons, who received a Ph.D. from the Department of History in 2013, has been named a Soros Justice Fellow by the Open Society Foundation according to a June 17 press release. Soros Fellows comprise experts, advocates, journalists, and scholars dedicated to the advancement of restorative justice, to ending mass incarceration, and to challenging dominant concepts of crime, punishment, mental health, and drug policy in the United States.
According to Open Society, Parsons will use the award to
write a book that explores how the deinstitutionalization of mental hospitals intersected with the rise of mass incarceration, showing how one form of confinement and stigmatization has in effect been replaced by another.
Parsons graduated from the UIC Department of History iafter defending her dissertation titled "“Re-institutionalizing America: The Politics of Mental Health and Incarceration, 1945-1985.” She is now Assistant Professor of History at University of North Carolina Greensboro.
Congratulations, Anne, on this distinguished and important award!