is Professor Emeritus of English at Emory University and a Senior Editor at First Things. He is best known as the author of The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30), in which he shows the connection between, on the one hand, the notorious decline on the part of young Americans in general knowledge and in inclination to read and, on the other, the emergence of a new form of adolescent culture closely related to digital technology. This book established him as a leading proponent of the view that contemporary America faces altogether unprecedented challenges in facilitating the transition of adolescents to adult life.
Among his other books are Literary Criticism: An Autopsy, The Pragmatic Mind: Explorations in the Psychology of Belief, and Negrophobia: A Race Riot in Atlanta, 1906. Bauerlein also contributes regularly to journals such as The Chronicle of Higher Education, Times Literary Supplement, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. He was formerly the Director of the Office of Research and Analysis of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Read Bauerlein’s two articles in First Things about his experience at Ralston College “The Humanities in Georgia” (April, 2024) and "Paradise in Savannah" (May, 2023) where he describes the colleges as “...a little heaven on earth, a monastic academic interlude with genius and talent, collegiality in the etymological sense (“reading together”), guided by attentive, learned professors.”
