Dr. Joshua Bennett is the author of five books of poetry, criticism, and narrative nonfiction: Spoken Word: A Cultural History (Knopf, 2023); The Study of Human Life (Penguin, 2022); which was a winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize, longlisted for the Griffin International Poetry Prize and the Massachusetts Book Award, and is currently being adapted for television in collaboration with Warner Brothers Studios; Owed (Penguin, 2020), a finalist for the New England Book Award; Being Property Once Myself (Harvard University Press, 2020), winner of MLA's William Sanders Scarborough Prize, and The Sobbing School (Penguin, 2016), winner of the National Poetry Series and a finalist for the NAACP Image Award. 

Dr. Bennett has recited his orignal works at the Sundance Film Festival, the NAACP Image Awards, and President Obama's Evening of Poetry and Music at the White House. He has also performed and taught creative writing workshops at hundreds of middle schools, high schools, colleges, and universities across the United States, as well as in the U.K. and South Africa. 

Dr. Bennett is a Professor of Literature and Distinguished Chair of the Humanities at MIT. 

Dr. Bennett will be in residence at the Suzy Newhouse Center for the Humanities on February 26th and 27th. The schedule of events for Dr. Bennett's artist residency is as follows: 

Wednesday, February 26th

• 12:45-2:00pm - Promising: On Black Poetics and the Aims of Education 
  Lunch will be provided — kindly RSVP here. 
• 4:30-6:00pm - Life Studies: An Evening of Poetry with Dr. Bennett
  Moderated by Dan Chiasson (Lorraine C. Wang Professor of English) 
  No RSVP required.

Thursday, February 27th 

• 12:45-2:00pm - Minor Notes: Teaching the Archival Arts 
  Lunch will be provided — kindly RSVP here. 

These events are open to all members of the Wellesley College community.