Congratulations, Dr. Joshua Bennett! This prestigious fellowship, which facilitates focused research and the free and open exchange of ideas among an international community of scholars, was awarded to Professor Joshua Bennett by the Institute for Advanced Study for the 2025-26 academic year.
Established in 1930 in Princeton, New Jersey, the Institute for Advanced Study IAS seeks to advance the frontiers of knowledge across the sciences and humanities. Each year, IAS welcomes more than 250 of the most promising post-doctoral researchers and distinguished scholars from around the world to advance fundamental discovery as part of an interdisciplinary and collaborative environment.
During his stay, Joshua Bennett, Professor of Literature and Distinguished Chair of the Humanities, will work on his next book of criticism, “The Art of Opacity.” His work explores the role of dissemblance in African American literature and culture. Turning to the works of Ralph Ellison, Anne Spencer, Frederick Douglass, June Jordan, and others, Bennett argues that opacity is often a form of collective self-preservation: a means through which Black culture workers deploy a kind of critical withholding—a commitment that manifests even at the level of the built environment—to protect the people, places, and ideas that made them possible.
“It’s a joy to return to Princeton, a place that had a singular impact on my formation as a scholar and poet,” he says. “I look forward to meeting new friends and colleagues, and to reconnecting with the ones I first met over a decade ago.”