Edna Bonhomme is a historian of science and culture writer based in Berlin, Germany. Bonhomme is a finalist for the 2026 Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing. She earned her PhD in history of science at Princeton University. Her essays critically engage with how humans navigate the unsavory and unwieldy states of ill health; they have appeared in The Atlantic, The Nation, London Review of Books, New York Review of Books, and more. Edna is the author of A History of the World in Six Plagues. She is the co-editor of After Sex and her forthcoming book, Tending to Our Wounds, will be published in July 2026.
Edna Bonhomme
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Writing on Public Books
“To Reach across Boundaries”: Laleh Khalili Talks Solidarity and Global Trade
“It is precisely because we are unlike, or we haven’t had the same experiences, that solidarity can be built.”
“We Plot to Undo the World”
Artist Simone Leigh curated a series of intellectual sermons directed by Black women who grieved, strategized, loved, and yearned for community.
When Black Humanity Is Denied
Critiquing the Enlightenment is essential, because there the asylum, prison, and science itself unveil their violent foundations.
