The invention—and commodification—of personality

Merve Emre is a literary critic, essayist, and professor of English at Wesleyan University, where she also directs the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism. She is the author of The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing, a critically acclaimed exploration of the psychology industry and its enduring cultural influence. A contributing writer for The New Yorker, her essays and criticism also appear regularly in The New York Review of Books, The Atlantic, and The Yale Review. Emre is the host of The Critic and Her Publics, a podcast offering a behind-the-scenes look at the role of criticism in today’s culture. As a frequent speaker and public intellectual, she is known for her sharp, unflinching analyses of psychology, literature, and contemporary life. Across her work, she explores how private emotions and public institutions shape not only who we are but who we are expected to be.

Laurent de Sutter is an award-winning author and publisher whose books have been translated into 15 languages. He runs the "Theory Redux" book series with Polity Press and "Perspectives Critiques" with Presses Universitaires de France. He also is a professor of Legal Theory at Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Sciences-Po Paris. He recently published "Superweak: Thinking in the 21st Century” (Polity, 2025).