Michael Bérubé is the Paterno Family Professor

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 in Literature

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

 and Director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Pennsylvania State University

Pennsylvania State University

The Pennsylvania State University, commonly referred to as Penn State or PSU, is a public research university with campuses and facilities throughout the state of Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1855, the university has a threefold mission of teaching, research, and public service...

, where he teaches cultural studies

Cultural studies

Cultural studies is an academic field grounded in critical theory and literary criticism. It generally concerns the political nature of contemporary culture, as well as its historical foundations, conflicts, and defining traits. It is, to this extent, largely distinguished from cultural...

 and American literature. He is the author of several books on cultural studies, disability rights, liberal politics

Liberalism in the United States

Liberalism in the United States is a broad political philosophy centered on the unalienable rights of the individual. The fundamental liberal ideals of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion for all belief systems, and the separation of church and state, right to due process...

, and debates in higher education

Higher education

Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...

, and since 2004 has been a blog

Blog

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ger on these and other topics. In 2010 he was elected second vice president of the Modern Language Association

Modern Language Association

The Modern Language Association of America is the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature...

, and will assume the presidency in 2012. He also serves on the National Council of the American Association of University Professors

American Association of University Professors

The American Association of University Professors is an organization of professors and other academics in the United States. AAUP membership is about 47,000, with over 500 local campus chapters and 39 state organizations...

, as well as on the AAUP's Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure.

Bérubé's blog, which he began in January 2004, mixed his perspective on these professional and political issues with a variety of other subjects, ranging from his family life to music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

 to professional hockey

Hockey

Hockey is a family of sports in which two teams play against each other by trying to maneuver a ball or a puck into the opponent's goal using a hockey stick.-Etymology:...

. His academic pursuits include American literature

American literature

American literature is the written or literary work produced in the area of the United States and its preceding colonies. For more specific discussions of poetry and theater, see Poetry of the United States and Theater in the United States. During its early history, America was a series of British...

, African-American literature, cultural studies, critical theory

Critical theory

Critical theory is an examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism...

, and disability studies

Disability studies

Disability studies is a relatively new interdisciplinary academic field focusing on the roles of people with disabilities in history, literature, social policy, law, architecture, and other disciplines. Although it has many antecedents, disability studies began to flourish toward the end of the...

, the last of which stems partly from his experience with his son Jamie, who has Down Syndrome

Down syndrome

Down syndrome, or Down's syndrome, trisomy 21, is a chromosomal condition caused by the presence of all or part of an extra 21st chromosome. It is named after John Langdon Down, the British physician who described the syndrome in 1866. The condition was clinically described earlier in the 19th...

 and whose life Bérubé has discussed in a way many find inspiring. Bérubé went on extended hiatus from his blog on January 8, 2007, and on March 22, joined Crooked Timber

Crooked Timber

Crooked Timber is a widely-read political blog run by a group of academics from and working in several different nations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Australia and Singapore...

, a political blog jointly run by a number of academics. In 2007–08 he also blogged occasionally at TPM Cafe. He restarted his own blog on September 29, 2008, and maintained it until October 15, 2010.

Bérubé earned his B.A. from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 in 1982 and his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 1989. He also attended Regis High School

Regis High School (New York City)

Regis High School is a private Jesuit university-preparatory school for academically gifted Roman Catholic young men located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Annual class enrollment is limited to approximately 135 male students from the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut tri-state area...

, in the same graduating class with U.S. Attorney & Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald

Patrick Fitzgerald

Patrick J. Fitzgerald is the current United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois and a member of the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Special Counsel...

. Before taking his position at Penn State, Bérubé held a professorship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...

.

Bérubé lives in State College, Pennsylvania with wife Janet Lyon. Together they have two sons, Nick and Jamie, mentioned above.

Books

• The Left at War (2009)
• Rhetorical Occasions: Essays on Humans and the Humanities (2006)
• What's Liberal About the Liberal Arts? Classroom Politics and "Bias" in Higher Education (2006)
• The Aesthetics of Cultural Studies (editor) (2004)
• The Employment of English: Theory, Jobs, and the Future of Literary Studies (1998)
• Life As We Know It: A Father, A Family, and an Exceptional Child (1996)
• Higher Education Under Fire: Politics, Economics, and the Crisis of the Humanities (co-editor with Cary Nelson) (1995)
• Public Access: Literary Theory and American Cultural Politics (1994)
• Marginal Forces/Cultural Centers: Tolson, Pynchon, and the Politics of the Canon (1992)

External links

• http://www.michaelberube.com Michael Bérubé's website, with blog archive