Wilder Penfield dreams of the Nobel Prize

Abstract

This essay investigates the relationship the Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield had, in old age, with honours and accolades, including the Nobel Prize. Documents from the Nobel Prize Archives shed light on his nominations and on the assessments the Committee took into consideration, illuminating the professional networks the nomination process activated and the values underwriting the adjudication process. Meanwhile, Penfield's correspondence and personal diary reveal the complex emotions that such a prestigious award can engender. Penfield expressed a reticence to fully embrace the Prize, although he had once actively worked to gather support for his own nomination. This essay also considers a little-studied phenomenon—the rejection of prizes. While mundane considerations such as wishing not to travel may have played a role, Penfield expressed a deeper disconnect between his own sense of self and the prizes he rejected, declaring a feeling of personal unworthiness vis-à-vis their particularities. Moreover, he also expressed a more general ambivalence regarding awards because they tended to single out individuals, and for him this stood in tension with the reality of the collective, communal nature of scientific work and medical practice.