Bio:
Dr. Paula Marantz Cohen, Dean Emerita of the Pennoni Honors College and Distinguished Professor of English, received her BA in English and French from Yale University and her PhD in English from Columbia University. She is the author of six non-fiction books on literature, film, art, and culture and five novels, including, most recently,
Of Human Kindness: What Shakespeare Teaches Us About Empathy (Yale UP) and
Talking Cure: An Essay on the Civilizing Power of Conversation (Princeton UP) and six novels, including the bestselling
Jane Austen in Boca, the literary mystery,
What Alice Knew: A Most Curious Tale of Henry James and Jack the Ripper, and the Young Adult novel,
Beatrice Bunson’s Guide to Romeo and Juliet. She is the host of
The Civil Discourse, an interview series on controversial topics appearing online and on PBS television affiliates. She directed the documentary film,
Two Universities and the Future of China,. Her essays and op-eds have appeared frequently in the
Wall Street Journal, the
Times Literary Supplement, the
Yale Review,
The American Scholar, and
The Chronicle of Higher Education.