Joshua Bennett is the author of five books of poetry, criticism, and narrative nonfiction, including most recently Spoken Word: A Cultural History (Alfred A. Knopf, 2023) and The Study of Human Life (Penguin Books, 2022), which won the Paterson Poetry Prize, was longlisted for both the Griffin International Poetry Prize and the Massachusetts Book Award, and is being adapted for television in collaboration with Warner Brothers Studios. The recipient of fellowships and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Society of Fellows at Harvard University, he is professor of literature and Distinguished Chair of the Humanities at MIT and lives in Massachusetts with his family. (updated 10/2023)