David Sherman

David Sherman is an Associate Professor of English at Brandeis University, where he also serves as Department Chair and Co-Director of the Brandeis Educational Justice Initiative (focused on education in the criminal justice system). He is a co-founder of The Elegy Project, a public poetry initiative that distributes poems in public spaces to address grief and cultural presence of the dead.

• Education: PhD and MA from New York University
• Current Projects: The Machine Stops (modernism and secularization) and Inventing Farewell (mortuary practices)

His research spans global modernism, elegy, public sphere theory, comedy, literature in the criminal justice system, and literature-philosophy intersections. His work often examines how literature responds to societal challenges like human fungibility, secular hope, and ethical mourning practices.

Scientific trends in his recent articles focus on secularization, carceral justice, modernist aesthetics, and posthumous ethics. Key subfields include postmodern ethics, literary pragmatism, comedy theory, and public humanities.

He is affiliated faculty in Brandeis' Health: Science, Society and Policy Program; Master of Arts Program in Comparative Humanities; and Interdepartmental Program in Comparative Literature and Culture. His courses include Storytelling Performance, Joyce's Ulysses, and Magical Realism and Modern Myth.