Martin Puchner is the Byron and Anita Wien Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Harvard University. His prize-winning books range from philosophy to the arts and include Stage Fright (2002), Poetry of the Revolution (2006), The Drama of Ideas (2010), and The Written World (2017), a Wall Street Journal bestseller that has been translated into some twenty languages. His most recent book, The Language of Thieves (2020), interweaves family memoir with a reflection on Rotwelsch, the underground language of Central Europe, which he learned from his father and uncle. His forthcoming book, Literature for a Changing Planet, offers a world-literature perspective on the climate crisis, and he is currently working on a new introduction to the arts and humanities. He is the general editor of the Norton Anthology of World Literature, a Guggenheim fellow, and a member of the European Academy.
Paper Title: The Story of Us: An Introduction to the Arts and Humanities (Panel 1, 1A)