Louis Menand
Encyclopedia : L : LO : LOU : Louis Menand
Louis Menand (born January 21, 1952) is a prominent American writer and academic, best known for his book The Metaphysical Club (2001), an intellectual and cultural history of late 19th and early 20th century America. It includes detailed biographical material on Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, and John Dewey. Menand contributes regularly to The New Yorker (for which he is a staff writer), and The New York Review of Books, among other publications. He is the Robert M. and Anne T. Bass Professor of English and American Literature and Language at Harvard University.
A graduate of Pomona College, Menand received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1980 and was Distinguished Professor of English at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York before moving to Harvard in 2003. His principal field of academic interest is 19th and 20th century American cultural history.
The Metaphysical Club won the Pulitzer Prize for History, the 2002 Francis Parkman Prize, and The Heartland Prize for Non-Fiction. In 2002, Menand published American Studies, a collection of essays on prominent figures in American culture.
Menand was born in Syracuse, New York, USA, and reared around Boston, Massachusetts, USA. His mother is a historian, writing a biography of Samuel Adams. Menand's father, Louis Menand III, taught political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
References
- The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America, ISBN 0374199639 (1st hardcover ed.), ISBN 0374528497 (1st paperback ed.)
- American Studies, ISBN 0374104344 (1st hardcover ed.)
See also
External links
- [The Essential Menand] : books, articles, and everything Louis Menand
- Harvard University Department of English [faculty listing] for Menand
- CUNY [profile] of Menand (former faculty post)
- Menand's [columns] for NY Review of Books
- [Menand's humorous exegesis] of The Cat in the Hat on NPR's All Things Considered (link to Windows Media and RealMedia audio)
- [Louis Menand on writing]
Interviews
- [Menand interview] on The Metaphysical Club on All Things Considered (link to WM and RM audio)
- ["New New York Intellectual: An Interview with Louis Menand"] in the minnesota review, (June 1, 2001).
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