Martin Puchner is a literary critic and philosopher. He studied at Konstanz University, the University of Bologna, and the University of California, Santa Barbara, before receiving his Ph.D. at Harvard University. Until 2009 he held the H. Gordon Garbedian Chair at Columbia University, where he also served as co-chair of the Theater Ph.D. program. He now holds the Byron and Anita Wien Chair of Drama and of English and Comparative Literature at Harvard University. He is the founding director of the Mellon School of Theater and Performance Research at Harvard University.
His early work as a literary critic focused on modernism, especially such genres as the closet drama, the literary manifesto, and modern drama. His philosophical work concerns the philosophical dialogue and the intersections of theater and philosophy.
In an interview with Rain Taxi, Puchner anticipates the avant-garde in the 21st century in its relation to media, asserting “We are going through a media revolution even more extreme than that of the 20th century. I would say that an avant-garde for the 21st century would have to develop ways of using our own new media in critical, innovative, provocative ways. It would also have to be part of a political analysis of our moment, and translate that analysis into a new set of attitudes and ambitions.”
His more recent work focused on large-scale projects in literature, technology, and cultural history. He is the general editor of the Norton Anthology of World Literature and lectures on world literature.
In 2016 he launched a HarvardX MOOC on World Literature.
In 2017, he won a Guggenheim Fellowship. He currently is a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library.
In 2017, he published a sweeping account of literature from the invention of writing to the Internet: The Written World: The Power of Stories to Shape People, History, Civilization. New York: Random House, 2017. The book won advance praise from Margaret Atwood. The book was widely reviewed and translated into twenty languages.
On October 13, 2020, W. W. Norton & Company published his book, The Language of Thieves: My Family's Obsession with a Secret Code the Nazis Tried to Eliminate. The book was reviewed in the New York Times and other venues,. The book interweaves family history with an account of the underground language of central Europe called Rotwelsch. It was long-listed for the Wingate Prize. Michael Rosen, in The Guardian, called it "A book about history, language and culture wrapped up in a detective story. . . It feels as if the writer is peeling back the skin to reveal Germany. I found it fascinating."
In 2022 he published Literature for a Changing Language, based on the inaugural Lectures in European History at Oxford University. The book has been called "a stirring manifesto." It calls for a new approach to storytelling in an era of climate change, and has been widely reviewed in the Financial Times and other venues.
In 2023, he published Culture: The Story of Us, from Cave Art to K-pop., which takes us on a breakneck tour through pivotal moments in world history, providing a global introduction to the arts and humanities in one engaging volume. It has been reviewed in the New York Times, the Boston Globe the Wall Street Journal, Elle and Time Magazine and other newspapers.
Bibliography
- 2002; 2011: Stage Fright: Modernism, Anti-theatricality and Drama. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
- 2003: Against Theatre: Creative Destructions on the Modernist Stage. Editor, with Alan Ackerman. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
- 2003: Six Plays by Henrik Ibsen, with an introduction and notes by Martin Puchner. New York: Barnes and Noble.
- 2005: Karl Marx: The Communist Manifesto and Other Writings. With an introduction and notes by Martin Puchner. New York: Barnes and Noble.
- 2006: Theaterfeinde: Die anti-theatralischen Dramatiker der Moderne. Translated by Jan Kuveler. Freiburg: Rombach.
- 2006: Poetry of the Revolution: Marx, Manifestos, and the Avant-Gardes. Princeton: Princeton University Press, Winner of the James Russell Lowell Award.
- 2007: Modern Drama: Critical Concepts. New York: Routledge ISBN 978-0-415-38660-9
- 2009: The Norton Anthology of Drama. Co-editor. New York: Norton.
- 2010: The Drama of Ideas: Platonic Provocations in Theater and Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press. Winner of the 2012 Joe A. Callaway Prize for best book in drama or theater.
- 2012: "The Norton Anthology of World Literature, 3rd edition." General editor. New York: Norton.
- 2017: "The Written World: The Power of Stories to Shape People, History, Civilization. New York: Random House, 2017.
- 2020: The Language of Thieves. New York: Norton.
- 2022: Literature for a Changing Planet. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- 2023: Culture: The Story of Us, from Cave Art to K-pop. New York: Norton.
References
- Columbia U English & Comparative Literature faculty profiles Archived March 17, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
- "| Faculty of Arts & Sciences".
- Stage Fright: Modernism, Anti-theatricality, and Drama (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002) ISBN 0-8018-6855-6
- Poetry of the Revolution: Marx, Manifestos, and the Avant-Gardes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006) ISBN 0-691-12260-1
- Modern Drama: Critical Concepts (New York: Routledge, 2007) ISBN 978-0-415-38660-9
- The Drama of Ideas: Platonic Provocations in Theater and Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010) ISBN 0-19-973032-6
- Bourgeois, Louis. "Poetry of the Revolution: An Interview with Martin Puchner", Rain Taxi. Spring 2014.
- "Martin Puchner -- H. Gordon Garbedian Chair in English and Comparative Literature". Archived from the original on 2010-06-12. Retrieved 2010-04-09.
- "Masterpieces of World Literature".
- "John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | Martin Puchner".
- "The New York Public Library's Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers Announces 2017-2018 Fellows".
- "The Written World by Martin Puchner | PenguinRandomHouse.com". Archived from the original on 2017-09-25.
- @MargaretAtwood (18 June 2017). "The Written World: How Literature Shaped Civilization, by Martin Puchner: coming in Nov. Well worth a read, to find out how come we read..." (Tweet) – via Twitter.
- "Editions of The Written World: The Power of Stories to Shape People, History, Civilization". Goodreads.
- "The Language of Thieves". WW Norton.
- "The Secret Code That Threatened Nazi Fantasies of Racial Purity". New York Times. New York Times.
- "Krauss, de Waal and Puchner make Wingate Prize longlist". The Bookseller.
- "The Language of Thieves: The Story of Rotwelsch and One Family's Secret History". goodreads.
- "Literature for a Changing Planet". Princeton University Press.
- "Literature for a Changing Planet". Publisher's Weekly.
- "Literature for a Changing Planet — can storytelling save our climate?". Financial Times.
- "Culture". Norton. WW Norton. Retrieved 21 June 2023.
- "Culture: Story of Us". martinpuchner.com.
- "James Russell Lowell Prize Winners | Modern Language Association". Archived from the original on 2015-11-23. Retrieved 2017-07-02.