Reno Lauro received his PhD from the University of St. Andrews where he wrote on Tolkien’s philosophy of mythopoeia as a response to Jean Baudrillard’s hyperreality. While completing his dissertation, he spent two years working for Terrence Malick on the Palme d’Or winning film The Tree of Life (2011), an experience which profoundly influenced his reading of Tolkien. Over the last ten years, Reno has been working at the crossroads of digital and classical education with an emphasis on history, philosophy, and eliciting ​‘the smile of life’ from technology. He is currently working on his first book, Tolkien’s House of Being.