In his 2008 book The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes our Future (or Don’t Trust Anyone under 30) Dr. Mark Bauerlein argues that despite unprecedented access to knowledge and information, the latest generation of Americans appears to be “no more learned or skilled than their predecessors, no more knowledgable, fluent, up-to-date or inquisitive, except in the materials of youth culture.”

Bauerlein is professor of English at Emory University and has taught there since 1989, with a two-and-a-half year break in 2003-05 to serve as the Director of the Office of Research and Analysis, at the National Endowment for the Arts. He has published numerous scholarly works, including a highly acclaimed account of a 1906 race riot in Atlanta (Negrophobia). In addition, his work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, The Washington Post, TLS, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, where his blog eloquently promotes the humanities. A recent essay (2012) in First Things narrates his turn from atheism to Catholicism.

This event is sponsored by the department of Language and Literature as part of the Writers Read Series.