Geoffrey
Galt Harpham is president and director of the National Humanities
Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, the only institute for
advanced study in the world dedicated exclusively to the humanities. He
was
trained as a literary scholar, but his work has encompassed a wide
range of topics and fields. Among his many books are
On the Grotesque: Strategies of Contradiction in Art and Literature (1982);
Shadows of Ethics: Criticism and the Just Society (1999); and Language Alone: The Critical Fetish of Modernity
(2002). His longstanding scholarly interests include the role of ethics
in literary study, the place of language in intellectual
history, and the work of Joseph Conrad. He has collaborated with M. H.
Abrams on
A Glossary of Literary Terms, now in its tenth edition.
In recent years, he has become a prominent historian of and advocate for the humanities;
The Humanities and the Dream of America appeared in 2011.
