Becoming a novelist to write Imperfect Alchemist after 30 years as a scholar offered Naomi Miller a new lens on her lifetime research subject: Renaissance women authors. Natalie Byfield reframed her research on the social construction of race in the U.S. in her study of the Central Park Jogger case by attending not just to the “subject” of race, but to the language through which that subjectivity is constructed. For their Princeton 40th Reunion, Naomi and Natalie came together for a conversation about how jettisoning the illusion of “objectivity” as scholars has enabled them to find new pathways to knowledge, and to reach wider audiences.
