Jennifer Michael Hecht
Current City, State, Country
Birth City, State, Country
Biography
Jennifer Michael Hecht is a poet, teacher, philosopher, and historian. Originally from Long Island, she resides in Brooklyn, NY. Hecht received her PhD in the History of Science from Columbia University, and has taught at institutions including the New School and Nassau Community College. Her poetry and scholarly research have been widely-lauded, including the collection of poems The Next Ancient World (2005), and the scientific history, The End of the Soul (2003). The latter received the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award from the Phi Beta Kappa Society “for scholarly studies that contribute significantly to interpretations of the intellectual and cultural condition of humanity.” Infused with Hecht’s scholarly interests, her poetry is self-described as “philosophical, funny, melancholy, [and] psychological.” Hecht served as a nonfiction judge for the 2010 National Book Award, and claims membership to the New York Institute for the Humanities.
What is the relationship between Judaism and/or Jewish culture and your poetry?
A few poems in my new book talk about being Jewish, perhaps more than in my three others. My poetry in general has often dealt with Jewish themes and symbols. I call myself a poetic atheist, but a Jewish one.
Published Works
Poetry
Who Said (Copper Canyon Press, 2013)
Funny (University of Wisconsin Press, 2005)
The Next Ancient World (University of Chicago Press, 2001)
Philosophical/Historical Scholarship
The Wonder Paradox: Embracing the Weirdness of Existence and the Poetry of Our Lives (Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2024)
Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It (Yale University Press, 2013)
The Happiness Myth: Why What We Think is Right is Wrong (HarperOne, 2009)
The End of the Soul: Scientific Modernity, Atheism, and Anthropology in France, 1876-1936 (Columbia University Press, 2003)
Doubt, A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson (Harper Collins, 2003)
Author Site
Links to Sample Works
Video Reading
Current Title
Education
Columbia University, Ph.D.
Adelphi University, B.A.