2010 Presenters
William Powers
A graduate of Harvard, William Powers worked as a U.S. Senate staff member before beginning his journalism career at The Washington Post where he covered business, politics and popular culture. His widely read Post column, The Magazine Reader, launched his career as a leading thinker and writer on life in the age of information.
His work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, New York Magazine, McSweeney’s, The Guardian and many other publications, and he created The New Republic’s first media column. He is a two-time winner of the National Press Club’s Arthur Rowse Award for best American media commentary.
As a fellow at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center in 2006-2007, Powers wrote the groundbreaking National Journal essay, “Hamlet’s BlackBerry: Why Paper is Eternal,” in which he argues that the latest digital devices have much to learn from the 2,000-year-old substrate.
In 2008 he began writing a book focused on the broader question of how to live wisely and happily in a connected world. In Hamlet’s BlackBerry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age, Powers challenges the assumption that the more we connect through technology, the better. Part memoir, part intellectual journey, Hamlet’s Blackberry is “a brilliant and thoughtful handbook for the Internet age” (Bob Woodward).
LINKS:
Powers interviews about Hamlet's Blackberry on the Diane Rehm show on NPR
The New York Times reviews Hamlet's Blackberry
