Mark Bauerlein

Mark Weightman Bauerlein (born 1959) is an English professor at Emory University and senior editor of First Things journal. He serves, in addition, as a Visitor of Ralston College, a start-up liberal arts college in Savannah.

Bauerlein earned his doctorate in English from UCLA in 1988, having completed a thesis on poet Walt Whitman, under the supervision of Joseph N. Riddel.

He has taught at Emory since 1989. Between 2003 and 2005, Bauerlein worked at the National Endowment for the Arts, serving as the Director of the Office of Research and Analysis. While there, Bauerlein contributed to an NEA study, "Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America."

His books include Literary Criticism: An Autopsy (1997), The Pragmatic Mind: Explorations in the Psychology of Belief (1997). He is also the author of the 2008 book, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30), which won the Nautilus Book Award.

Bauerlein explains how his experience as a teacher led to his writing of The Dumbest Generation:

Because in my limited experience as a teacher, I’ve noticed in the last 10 years that students are no less intelligent, no less ambitious but there are two big differences: Reading habits have slipped, along with general knowledge. You can quote me on this: You guys don’t know anything.

Apart from his scholarly work, he publishes in popular periodicals such as Chronicle of Higher Education, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard and The Times Literary Supplement.

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