Affiliated Departments & Programs

Daniel Mark Epstein is an American poet, dramatist, and biographer whose works have been translated into many languages. His poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, and many other magazines. His stage plays, including “Jenny and the Phoenix,” “The Midnight Visitor,” and “Jefferson and Poe” have been produced Off Broadway (St. Peter’s Church, Symphony Space) and in regional theaters (Baltimore’s Theatre Project); and his radio dramas “Star of Wonder,” and “The Two Menorahs,” have become mainstays on National Public Radio. His many honors include the Prix de Rome (Rome Prize) from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and an Academy Award for Literature, also from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has taught playwriting at The Johns Hopkins University (graduate writing program) and Towson State University. The author of more than twenty-five books, he will be publishing his collected poems, “Constellations,” in the autumn of 2025.

Areas of Expertise

Poetics, classical literature (Latin and Greek), playwriting, creative writing, American history

Education

1970 — Bachelor of Arts from Kenyon College, magna cum laude

Courses Recently Taught

To know where to go, one needs to know where one has been. Join us on our intellectual odyssey as we trace the history of ideas, political revolutions and technological changes that have shaped our shared human culture. We begin with the earliest efforts to understand ourselves and the world around us. Through a highly diverse and inclusive conversation among philosophers and poets, historians and artists, scientists and humanists, we explore the vast system of interconnected ideas that makes us who we are. Focusing on texts, political movements, cultural changes, religious beliefs and scientific discoveries that have transformed the world, this course challenges students to ask some of life’s most fundamental questions: What is a truly happy life? Is there an ideal human community? Why do we tell stories? When confronted with other ways of living, how do we evaluate our own life? We also consider the relative value of human reason and emotion: Which should guide our lives and the organization of our political communities? In a secular world, does art replace religion as a way to make sense of and give value to life? And does the radical violence of revolutions and world wars challenge our very premise of human excellence and exceptionalism? Near the end of our odyssey, we touch on the origins of computer science in ideas borrowed from math, philosophy and linguistics. Do the sometimes centuries-old answers to life's fundamental questions still hold? With guest lectures by professors from a wide range of Kenyon departments and weekly seminars during which smaller groups of students debate the material with one another and their seminar leader, our unique course provides one of the best introductions to liberal education. Students enrolled in this course are automatically added to IPHS 112Y for the spring semester. IPHS 111-112Y fulfills the Humanities diversification requirement.\n

To know where to go, one needs to know where one has been. Join us on our intellectual odyssey as we trace the history of ideas, political revolutions and technological changes that have shaped our shared human culture. We begin with the earliest efforts to understand ourselves and the world around us. Through a highly diverse and inclusive conversation among philosophers and poets, historians and artists, scientists and humanists, we explore the vast system of interconnected ideas that makes us who we are. Focusing on texts, political movements, cultural changes, religious beliefs and scientific discoveries that have transformed the world, this course challenges students to ask some of life’s most fundamental questions: What is a truly happy life? Is there an ideal human community? Why do we tell stories? When confronted with other ways of living, how do we evaluate our own life? We also consider the relative value of human reason and emotion: Which should guide our lives and the organization of our political communities? In a secular world, does art replace religion as a way to make sense of and give value to life? And does the radical violence of revolutions and world wars challenge our very premise of human excellence and exceptionalism? Near the end of our odyssey, we touch on the origins of computer science in ideas borrowed from math, philosophy and linguistics. Do the sometimes centuries-old answers to life's fundamental questions still hold? With guest lectures by professors from a wide range of Kenyon departments and weekly seminars during which smaller groups of students debate the material with one another and their seminar leader, our unique course provides one of the best introductions to liberal education. IPHS 111-112Y fulfills the Humanities diversification requirement.