Dr. Scott Henkel is the director of the Wyoming Institute for Humanities Research, the Wyoming Excellence Chair in the Humanities, and associate professor in the departments of English and African American and Diaspora Studies at the University of Wyoming. He is the author of Direct Democracy: Collective Power, the Swarm, and the Literatures of the Americas, which won a C. L. R. James Award for Best Published Book for Academic or General Audiences from the Working-Class Studies Association in 2018. Dr. Henkel shared his story on the Wyoming Humanities "What's Your Why?" podcast.