Pembroke Center

Jenny Dolan is a PhD candidate in American Studies. Her research interests include the history of American self-help culture, the history of science, and narrative theory. Her work has been published in The New York Times. Jenny is writing a dissertation that historicizes willpower by tracing how the concept became legible in the context of the rise of corporate capitalism and American empire building and later became empiricized by scientists. Unfortunately, the concept of willpower has produced a hierarchy of humanity, so Jenny’s hope is that denaturalizing willpower will create space for envisioning alternate modes of selfhood that might make life more livable for more people.