Jennifer Michael Hecht

Jennifer Michael Hecht (b. November 23, 1965) is a poet, historian, philosopher, and author.

Hecht's scholarly articles and poetry have been published in many journals and magazines. She has also written book reviews for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The American Scholar and other publications. She has written several columns for The New York Times online "Times Select."

Background

Born in Glen Cove, New York on Long Island, Hecht attended Adelphi University. She earned her Ph.D. in the History of Science from Columbia University in 1995 and for a time studied at the Université de Caen, and the Université d’Angers. She currently teaches poetry and philosophy in the Graduate Writing Program of The New School and is a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities.

Published works

In 2002 her debut poetry collection "The Next Ancient World" received the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America, as well as ForeWord Magazine's award for Poetry Book of the Year. Her second collection, "Funny", won the 2005 Felix Pollak Prize from the University of Wisconsin Press.

In 2003 Hecht published two books of history and philosophy with two different publishers. The first, "", is an epic, world-wide study of religious doubt throughout history. The other, "The End of the Soul", is a profile of an unusual group of eighteenth-century French anthropologists who formed the Society of Mutual Autopsy to discover links between personality, ability and brain morphology. It received the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award for 2004 from the Phi Beta Kappa Society as a book that "is an important contribution to knowledge, serious scholarship with a broad pertinence to the human condition."

In 2007 Hecht published "" in which she attempts to examine happiness through historical perspective. Hecht maintains that our current perception of happiness is affected by culture, and that future generations may well mock our view of happiness as we make fun of earlier generations.

Bibliography

History and philosophy

* 2003 "" — ISBN 0-231-12846-0
* 2003 "" — ISBN 0-06-009795-7
* 2007 "The Happiness Myth" — ISBN 0-06-081397-0

Periodicals

The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, The Journal of the History of Ideas, , French Historical Studies, and others.

Poetry

Other books

* 2001 "The Next Ancient World" — ISBN 0-9710310-0-2
* 2005 "Funny" — ISBN 0-299-21400-1

Collections

* "Best American Poetry 2005", Paul Muldoon and David Lehman, eds. (Scribner's, 2005).
* "Good Poems for Hard Times", Garrison Keillor, ed. (Viking/Penguin, 2005).
* "Poetry Daily", Boller, Selby, and Yost, eds. (Sourcebooks, 2003).
* "Good Poems", Garrison Keillor, ed. (Viking/Penguin, 2002).
* "Poems to Live by in Uncertain Times", Joan Murray, ed. (Beacon, 2001).
* "The Best American Poetry 1999", Robert Bly and David Lehman, eds. (Scribner's, 1999).

Periodicals

The New York Times, Partisan Review, Ms. Magazine, Antioch Review, Barrow Street, Gettysburg Review, Southern Review, Salmagundi, Quarterly West, Missouri Review, Denver Quarterly, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, River City, and other journals.

Translations

Portuguese

* "Dúvida: uma História", 2005

External links

* [http://www.jennifermichaelhecht.com/ Jennifer Michael Hecht official website]
* [http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/doubt/index.shtml Interview with Jennifer Michael Hecht (May 2007)] on [http://www.speakingoffaith.org Speaking of Faith] with Krista Tippett
* [http://scienceandreligion.hampshire.edu/hecht_video.html Video lecture by Jennifer Michael Hecht] on the history of religious and philosophical doubt.

Persondata
NAME=Hecht, Jennifer Michael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Hecht, Jennifer
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Philosopher, poet, historian, author
DATE OF BIRTH=November 23, 1965
PLACE OF BIRTH=Glen Cove, Long Island, New York, United States
DATE OF DEATH=
PLACE OF DEATH=