“a stubborn resolve to ignore or ridicule”
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Ayn Rand
Alice O'Connor, better known by her pen name Ayn Rand, was a Russian and American writer and philosopher. She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system which she named Objectivism.
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culture · Russian-American philosopher (1905–1982) · playwright · philosopher · novelist · screenwriter · literary critic · essayist · journalist · science fiction writer · writer · also Ayn Rand, Alice O'Connor, Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum, Rand
Born 2 February 1905 · Died 6 March 1982 · Q132524
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s emphasis on reason led her to denigrate emotions and create unrealistic expectations of how consistently rational human beings should be. Ethics and politics In ethics, Rand argued for rational and ethical egoism (rational self-interest), as the guiding moral principle. She said the individual should
2026· 4 entries
“s emphasis on reason led her to denigrate emotions and create unrealistic expectations of how consistently rational human beings should be. Ethics and politics In ethics, Rand argued for rational and ethical egoism (rational self-interest), as the guiding moral principle. She said the individual should”
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Public attention spiked: 12,131 Wikipedia readers in one day, 3.6× the usual 3,385, with 0 article edits.
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Public attention spiked: 13,161 Wikipedia readers in one day, 3.9× the usual 3,385, with 0 article edits.
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2023· 2 entries
Fox News: Five reasons Ayn Rand loved the United States of America: 'The right to live by one's own judgment'
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The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies ceased publication
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2022· 1 entry
The Guardian: Madeline Miller: ‘Reading Ayn Rand was like being dipped in slime’
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2021· 2 entries
Cass Sunstein said Rand's ideas could be seen in the tax and regulatory policies of the Trump administration, which he attributed to the "enduring influence" of Rand's fiction
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Published “Safety and efficacy of the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine (AZD1222) against SARS-CoV-2: an interim analysis of four randomised controlled trials in Brazil, South Africa, and the UK” in The Lancet — cited 4,168 times.
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2020· 4 entries
Media critic Eric Burns said that "Rand is surely the most engaging philosopher of my lifetime", but "nobody in the academe pays any attention to her, neither as an author nor a philosopher"
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Published “Safety and immunogenicity of the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine against SARS-CoV-2: a preliminary report of a phase 1/2, single-blind, randomised controlled trial” in The Lancet — cited 2,169 times.
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Published “Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response” in Nature Human Behaviour — cited 3,571 times.
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The editor of a collection of critical essays about Rand said academics who disapproved of her ideas had long held "a stubborn resolve to ignore or ridicule" her work but that more were engaging with her work in recent y
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2019· 5 entries
The Guardian: The Fountainhead review – Ivo van Hove hypnotises with Ayn Rand's nonsense
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PolitiFact rated the claim “Ayn Rand said, "The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me."” Mostly False.
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Forbes: Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" Shows Us That There's More to Life Than Money
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Lisa Duggan described Rand's fiction as popular and influential on many readers, despite being easy to criticize for "her cartoonish characters and melodramatic plots, her rigid moralizing, her middle- to lowbrow aesthet
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Lisa Duggan said that Rand's novels had "incalculable impact" in encouraging the spread of neoliberal political ideas
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2018· 2 entries
Los Angeles Times: Ayn Rand’s ‘The Fountainhead’ coming to screens, says director Zack Snyder
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Published “Nanopore sequencing and assembly of a human genome with ultra-long reads” in Nature Biotechnology — cited 1,796 times.
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2017· 6 entries
Snopes rated the claim “Despite arguing that government benefits constitute an immoral redistribution of wealth, Ayn Rand received Social Security payouts later in life.” True.
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Snopes rated the claim “Ayn Rand said, "The question isn’t who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."” Mixture.
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The Guardian: Ayn Rand’s selfish gene is out of date | Letters
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The Guardian: Ayn Rand’s neoliberal legacy is seen today | Letters
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The Guardian: The new age of Ayn Rand: how she won over Trump and Silicon Valley
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Rand was added to the required reading list for the A Level Politics exam in the United Kingdom
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2015· 2 entries
Mental Floss: Ayn Rand on Love and Happiness
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Adam Weiner said that through Greenspan, "Rand had effectively chucked a ticking time bomb into the boiler room of the US economy"
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2014· 3 entries
The Guardian: Ayn Rand’s ‘never-before-seen’ novel Ideal due out in 2015
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The Guardian: The Fountainhead review – Ivo van Hove's smouldering take on Ayn Rand
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Published “Structural Topic Models for Open‐Ended Survey Responses” in American Journal of Political Science — cited 1,640 times.
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2012· 8 entries
Forbes: President Obama Jabs At Ayn Rand, Knocks Himself Out
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National Catholic Register: The Paul Ryan-Ayn Rand Connection: What’s a Catholic to Think?
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NPR: Where Is The Liberal Ayn Rand?
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Fox News: Ayn Rand loved Marilyn Monroe
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Published “Observation of a new boson at a mass of 125 GeV with the CMS experiment at the LHC” in Physics Letters B — cited 6,664 times.
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The Pennsylvania State University Press agreed to take over publication of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, and the University of Pittsburgh Press launched an "Ayn Rand Society Philosophical Studies" series based on the
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Political scientist Alan Wolfe dismissed Rand as a "nonperson" among academics, an attitude that writer Ben Murnane later described as "the traditional academic view" of Rand
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Published “Landscape moderation of biodiversity patterns and processes ‐ eight hypotheses” in Biological Reviews — cited 1,778 times.
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2010· 1 entry
Christian Science Monitor: How is elitist Ayn Rand a tea party hero? The contradiction should concern America.
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2009· 2 entries
CNBC: Why Ayn Rand Is Still Relevant
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Historian Jennifer Burns identified "an explosion of scholarship" about Rand since 2000; however, as of that year, few universities included Rand or Objectivism as a philosophical specialty or research area
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2002· 1 entry
“Lying in a Room of One's Own: How Women's Studies Textbooks Miseducate Students”
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2001· 1 entry
John David Lewis declared that "Rand wrote the most intellectually challenging fiction of her generation
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1999· 3 entries
Published “Why Don't Physicians Follow Clinical Practice Guidelines?” in JAMA — cited 5,171 times.
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The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, a peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary academic journal devoted to the study of Rand and her ideas, was established
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Published “Notch Signaling: Cell Fate Control and Signal Integration in Development” in Science — cited 4,891 times.
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1991· 1 entry
A survey conducted for the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club asked club members to name the most influential book in their lives
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1990· 1 entry
After an ideological disagreement with Peikoff, David Kelley founded the Institute for Objectivist Studies, now known as The Atlas Society
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1987· 2 entries
Awarded Prometheus Award - Hall of Fame for Anthem (1987).
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The Ayn Rand Society was founded as an affiliate of the American Philosophical Association
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1985· 1 entry
Peikoff worked with businessman Ed Snider to establish the Ayn Rand Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting Rand's ideas and works
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1983· 1 entry
Awarded Prometheus Award - Hall of Fame for Atlas Shrugged (1983).
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1982· 3 entries
Rand died of heart failure at her home in New York City
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Died 1982-03-06.
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Turned to non-fiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own periodicals and releasing several collections of essays
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1979· 1 entry
Peter Schwartz started a newsletter called The Intellectual Activist, which Rand endorsed
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1976· 2 entries
“The Philosophy of Objectivism”
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Retired from her newsletter and, despite her objections to government-run social programs, claimed Social Security and Medicare with the aid of a representative from her lawyers
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1973· 2 entries
Rand learned that her youngest sister, Nora, was still alive in Leningrad
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And only three such articles appeared during the rest of the 1970s
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1972· 1 entry
“The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult”
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1971· 3 entries
It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand was the title of a satirical memoir by American libertarian political activist Jerome Tuccille
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Its author declared writing about Rand "a treacherous undertaking" that could lead to "guilt by association" for taking her seriously
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Published “Objective Criteria for the Evaluation of Clustering Methods” in Journal of the American Statistical Association — cited 4,865 times.
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1968· 1 entry
Rand learned about Branden's relationship with Scott
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1967· 2 entries
John Hospers discussed Rand's ethical ideas in the second edition of his textbook, An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis
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Hazel Barnes included a chapter critiquing Objectivism in her book An Existentialist Ethics
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1964· 1 entry
Nathaniel Branden began an affair with the young actress Patrecia Scott, whom he later married
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1962· 1 entry
And Rand co-founded The Objectivist Newsletter (later renamed The Objectivist) to circulate articles about her ideas
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1958· 1 entry
Nathaniel Branden established the Nathaniel Branden Lectures, later incorporated as the Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI), to promote Rand's philosophy through public lectures
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1957· 2 entries
Published her best-selling work, the novel Atlas Shrugged
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Atlas Shrugged is considered Rand's magnum opus
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1954· 1 entry
Her close relationship with Nathaniel Branden turned into a romantic affair
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1951· 1 entry
Rand moved from Los Angeles to New York City, where she gathered a group of these admirers who met at Rand's apartment on weekends to discuss philosophy
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1949· 1 entry
After several delays, the film version of The Fountainhead was released
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1947· 1 entry
During the Second Red Scare, she testified as a "friendly witness" before the United States House Committee on Un-American Activities that the 1944 film Song of Russia grossly misrepresented conditions in the Soviet Unio
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1943· 1 entry
Rand's first major success as a writer came with The Fountainhead, a novel about an uncompromising architect named Howard Roark and his struggle against what Rand described as "second-handers" who attempt to live through
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1938· 1 entry
But Rand could not find an American publisher at that time
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1936· 1 entry
Rand's first novel was published, the semi-autobiographical We the Living
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1934· 1 entry
Reopened successfully on Broadway in 1935
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1932· 1 entry
Rand's first literary success was the sale of her screenplay Red Pawn to Universal Studios, although it was never produced
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1928· 1 entry
Alluded to his idea of the "superman" in notes for an unwritten novel whose protagonist was inspired by the murderer William Edward Hickman, whom Rand observed early in the trial before his guilt was decided by jury
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1905· 3 entries
Born 1905-02-02.
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Into a Jewish bourgeois family living in Saint Petersburg, the Russian Empire's capital
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“s ideas, and the extent of his influence on her even during her early years is disputed. She said in a 1964 radio interview that she was”
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