Richard Sennett

Biography

Born in 1943, Richard Sennett grew up in the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago.  At an early age he engaged with music, particularly the cello, studying with Frank Miller of the Chicago Symphony and working, at the Julliard School in New York, with Claus Adam and members of the Julliard Quartet.  He briefly attended the University of Chicago, where he played viola da gamba with Collegium Musicum.  

A hand injury put an end to his musical career. He then entered Harvard, studying sociology with David Riesman. Hannah Arendt was an informal and lasting mentor.

Over the course of the last five decades, he has written about social life in cities, changes in labour, and social theory. His books include Families Against the City, The Hidden Injuries of Class, The Fall of Public Man, Authority, The Corrosion of Character, Respect, The Culture of the New Capitalism, Together, The Craftsman, and  Building and Dwelling.  His most recent book, The Performer, appeared in 2024. 

He has a secret life as a novelist. He has written three: The Frog who Dared to Croak, An Evening of Brahms, and Palais Royal.  The last became a play, directed in New York by John Guare. 

As an academic, Mr. Sennett taught at New York University and then at the London School of Economics.  He has served as a visiting professor of urban studies at Harvard and at MIT.

In public life, Mr. Sennett founded the New York Institute for the Humanities, and became the  President of the American Council on Work. For the last three decades he has served as a consultant on cities to various bodies within the United Nations. He now chairs the London Centre for the Humanities.

Among other awards, he has received the Hegel Prize, the Spinoza Prize, an honorary doctorate from the University of Cambridge, and the Centennial Medal from Harvard University.   In 2018, Britain awarded him an OBE. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, and a Chevalier des Arts et Lettres in France.  

Mr. Sennett lives in London, where he cooks, and in Cambridge, where he gardens.