Avram Alpert teaches writing and comparative literature at Princeton University, where he co-directs the Public Scholarship Initiative. He is also the co-director of the Interdisciplinary Art and Theory Program, a free program for artists, curators, and writers in New York City. His writings focus on how to live well in a damaged world. He has written three books: Global Origins of the Modern Self, from Montaigne to Suzuki (2019), A Partial Enlightenment: What Modern Literature and Buddhism Can Teach Us About Living Well Without Perfection (2021), and The Good-Enough Life (2022), which was translated into a half dozen languages. His next book is While We’re Here: On Belonging in This World. He also writes fiction, as well as cultural criticism and political commentary for publications such as Dissent, the Guardian, and The New York Times.