Leo Braudy is University Professor and Bing Professor of English at the University of Southern California. He previously taught at Yale, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship as well as a Senior Scholar Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has been a fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation at the Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio, Italy, as well as a writer-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome. His book, Jean Renoir: The World of His Films, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Another of his books, The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Harper's. Mr. Braudy lives with his wife in Los Angeles.