Book Talk | Richard Sennett | The Performer

Join the Institute for Public Knowledge and the New York Institute for Humanities for a book talk on The Performer with author Richard Sennett, on Thursday, April 4th at 5:30 PM.

Richard Sennett currently serves as member of the United Nations Committee on Urban Initiatives, and he has advised the UN on urban issues for the past thirty years.  He is Visiting Professor of Urban Studies at Harvard. He chairs the trustees of  Theatrum Mundi, an organization that brings together young artists and urbanists.

Previously, he founded the New York Institute for the Humanities, served as President of the American Council on Work, and taught at New York University and at the London School of Economics. Over the course of the last five decades, Sennett has written about social life in cities, changes in labor, and social theory. His books include The Hidden Injuries of Class, The Fall of Public Man, The Corrosion of Character, The Culture of the New Capitalism, The Craftsman, and Building and Dwelling. Among other awards, he has received the Hegel Prize, the Spinoza Prize, an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University, and the Centennial Medal from Harvard University.

Sennett grew up in the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago.  He attended the Juilliard School in New York, where he worked with Claus Adam, cellist of the Juilliard Quartet.  He then studied social relations at Harvard, working with David Riesman, and independently with Hannah Arendt.