Russell Berman

Russell A. Berman (born May 14, 1950)^[1] is an American academic and professor specializing in German studies and Comparative literature. He serves as the Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University.^[2] He is also a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.^[3] He is the director of Stanford's Thinking Matters program. He previously served as associate dean and director of Stanford's Overseas Studies Program.^[4]

Early life and career

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Berman received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University in 1972 and completed a doctorate at Washington University in St. Louis in 1979.^[4] Since 1979, Berman has been on the faculty at Stanford University. In 2004, he became the editor of Telos, a quarterly journal of critical theory which has included extensive discussions of the Frankfurt School as well as Carl Schmitt.^[5] In 2011, he served as president of the Modern Language Association (MLA).^[6]

Together with his colleague David Tse-Chien Pan, he served on the U.S. State Department's Commission on Unalienable Rights convened by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and led by Harvard professor Mary Ann Glendon.^[7]

Selected bibliography

• Between Fontane and Tucholsky: Literary Criticism and the Public Sphere in Imperial Germany (New York: Lang, 1983)
• The Rise of the Modern German Novel: Crisis and Charisma (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986) - Outstanding Book in German Studies Award of the German Studies Association, 1988.
• Modern Culture and Critical Theory: Art, Politics, and the Legacy of the Frankfurt School (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989)
• Cultural Studies of Modern Germany: History, Representation, and Nationhood (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993)
• "Culture in the Conservative Revolution: The American Debate." Telos 101, Fall 1994.
• Enlightenment or Empire: Colonial Discourse in German Culture (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998) - Outstanding Book in German Studies Award of the German Studies Association, 2000.
• Anti-Americanism in Europe: A Cultural Problem (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2004)
• Fiction Sets You Free: On Literature In History (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2007)
• "Representing the Trial: Judith Butler Reads Hannah Arendt Reading Adolf Eichmann" in Fathom Journal, Spring (2015)