Clinton Seely is a faculty member in the department of South Asian Languages and civilizations at the University of Chicago. Seely is one of the leading Western scholars of  Bengali language and literature. His path-breaking biography of the Bengali poet Jibanananda Das is recognized as a model of its kind. He has also translated the works Michael Madhusudhan Dutt, authored numerous scholarly papers, and written a number of pedagogical books and software packages for students of Bengali