David Bromwich

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David Bromwich
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Academic, literary critic, literary historian
Academic background
Alma materYale University (B.A., PhD)
Academic work
InstitutionsPrinceton University
Yale University
Main interestsRomanticism, eighteenth-century, philosophy

David Bromwich is Sterling Professor of English at Yale University.[1]

Career[edit]

After graduating from Yale with a B.A. in 1973 and a Ph.D. four years later, Bromwich became an instructor at Princeton University, where he was promoted to Mellon Professor of English before returning to Yale in 1988.[2] In 1995 he was appointed Housum Professor of English at Yale. In 2006 he became a Sterling Professor.

Bromwich is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has published widely on Romantic criticism and poetry, and on eighteenth-century politics and moral philosophy. His book Politics by Other Means concerns the role of critical thinking and tradition in higher education, and defends the practice of liberal education against political encroachments from both Left and Right. His essays and reviews have appeared in The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, and many other U.S. and British journals. He is a frequent contributor of political blog posts on the Huffington Post. Since 2017, he has served as a trustee of the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, NC.

Bromwich's collection of essays Skeptical Music was awarded the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay in 2002.[3]

Political views[edit]

Bromwich argued against American intervention in the Syrian conflict.[4][5]

He was a frequent critic of the Obama administration's caution and failure to achieve more of the Democratic party's policy agenda. He criticized the 2011 State of the Union Address for a lack of focus on gun control and immigration and for rhetorical concessions to conservative ideology.[6] In 2014, he criticized the "disengagement" of the administration, saying that President Barack Obama "watches the world as its most important spectator."[7] In July 2020, Bromwich was one of the 153 signers of the "Harper's Letter" (also known as "A Letter on Justice and Open Debate") that expressed concern that "the free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted."

More recently, Bromwich has criticized the American stance on Ukraine for protracting the war with Russia and avoiding diplomacy.[8]

Bibliography[edit]

  • Writing Politics: An Anthology (New York: NYRB Classics, 2020)
  • American Breakdown: The Trump Years and How They Befell Us (London: Verso Books, 2019)
  • How Words Make Things Happen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019)
  • The Intellectual Life of Edmund Burke: From the Sublime and Beautiful to American Independence (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2014).
  • Moral Imagination: Essays (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014).
  • Literary Genius: 25 Classic Writers Who Define English & American Literature (Philadelphia, PA: Paul Dry Books, 2007). Essayist. (Illustrated by Barry Moser) ISBN 978-1589880351
  • American Sonnets: An Anthology (New York, NY: Library of America, 2007). Editor.
  • On Liberty (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003). By John Stuart Mill. New edition with a biographical essay by David Bromwich, an interpretative essay by George Kateb, and commentaries by various authors.
  • Skeptical Music: Essays on Modern Poetry (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2001).
  • On Empire, Liberty, and Reform: Speeches and Letters of Edmund Burke (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000). Editor.
  • Hazlitt: The Mind of a Critic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983; 2nd ed. 1999).
  • Disowned by Memory: Wordsworth's Poetry of the 1790s (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998).
  • Politics by Other Means: Higher Education and Group Thinking (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992).
  • A Choice of Inheritance: Self and Community from Edmund Burke to Robert Frost (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989).
  • Romantic Critical Essays (Cambridge English Prose Texts) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). Editor.

References[edit]

  1. ^ "David Bromwich appointed Sterling Professor of English". Yale Bulletin & Calendar. 34 (29). May 19, 2006. Archived from the original on 4 November 2017. Retrieved 2014-06-28.
  2. ^ "English Dept. Faculty & Staff » David Bromwich". english.yale.edu. Archived from the original on 2013-06-13. Retrieved 13 June 2013.
  3. ^ "2002 Literary Awards Winners". PEN. 2 November 2012. Archived from the original on 4 November 2017. Retrieved 28 June 2014.
  4. ^ David Bromwich (2013). "Stay Out of Syria!". The New York Review of Books. 60 (11). Retrieved 23 June 2013.
  5. ^ "On Monsterphilia and Assad". Guernica. 24 October 2013.
  6. ^ Bromwich, David (January 28, 2011). "Obama, Incorporated". New York Review of Book Blog. Retrieved 2014-06-28.
  7. ^ Bromwich, David (3 July 2014). "The World's Most Important Spectator". London Review of Books. 36 (13): 3–6. Retrieved 2014-06-28.
  8. ^ Bromwich, David (2022-08-29). "The Planet Can't Survive the Business of War". commondreams.org. Retrieved 2022-08-23.

External links[edit]