Lewis Hyde (born 1945)
is a scholar, essayist, translator, cultural critic and writer whose scholarly work focuses on the nature ofimagination, creativity, and property.
Early Life
Hyde was born in Boston, the son of Elizabeth Sanford Hyde and Walter Lewis Hyde. He received an M.A. in comparative literaturefrom the University of Iowa and a B.A. in sociology from the University of Minnesota after which there were many years of freelance work and odd jobs, before teaching writing in the 80s.
Career
Hyde taught writing at Harvard University (1983–1989); in his last year there, he directed the undergraduate writing program. From 1989 to 2001 he was the Luce Professor of Arts and Politics at Kenyon College in Ohio. Since 2006 he has served as the Richard L. Thomas Professor of Creative Writing at Kenyon, and a visiting fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center. He is also a Nonresident Fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for Communication.
Awards
Hyde's awards include an NEH Fellowship for Independent Study and Research (1979); three NEA Creative Writing Fellowships (1977, 1982, 1987); a MacArthur Fellowship (the "Genius" award) (1991); a residency at the Getty Center, Los Angeles (1993–94); an "Osher Fellow" at the Exploratorium in San Francisco (1998); a Lannan Literary Fellowship (2002); an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship (2003); and a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (2006).
