Lewis Hyde is a poet, essayist, translator, and cultural critic with a particular interest in the public life of the imagination. He is author of The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property and Trickster Makes This World. A MacArthur Fellow and former director of creative writing at Harvard, he is currently Richard L. Thomas Professor of Creative Writing at Kenyon College and fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society

Peter Sellars is a renowned theater, opera, and festival director known for his innovative interpretations of classic works which range from Mozart, Handel, Shakespeare, and Sophocles, to the 16th-century Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu.