Seth Lerer

Seth Lerer joined the Literature department as a visiting professor of Literature in January 2024. In a career of over 40 years, he has taught at Princeton University, Stanford University, and the University of California, San Diego, where he also served as Dean of Arts and Humanities. Lerer has lectured and published widely on Medieval and Renaissance literature, the history of the English language, children’s literature, and literary and cultural criticism. Among his published books are Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter (Chicago, 2008), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Truman Capote Prize in Criticism; Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language (revised edition, Columbia 2015); and the memoir, Prospero’s Son (Chicago, 2013). His latest book, Introducing the History of the English Language, appeared from Routledge in 2024. He is currently writing a biography of the philosopher Boethius for the Yale University Press Ancient Lives Series, and he continues to research and write on Children's Literature and the History of the English Language..