Cary Nelson
Encyclopedia
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
, is the current president of the American Association of University Professors
American Association of University Professors
The American Association of University Professors is an organization of professors and other academics in the United States. AAUP membership is about 47,000, with over 500 local campus chapters and 39 state organizations...
and a prominent scholar-activist.
Biography
He received his Ph.D in English from University of RochesterUniversity of Rochester
The University of Rochester is a private, nonsectarian, research university in Rochester, New York, United States. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The university has six schools and various interdisciplinary programs.The...
1970 and is a 1967 graduate of Antioch College
Antioch College
Antioch College is a private, independent liberal arts college in Yellow Springs, Ohio, United States. It was the founder and the flagship institution of the six-campus Antioch University system. Founded in 1852 by the Christian Connection, the college began operating in 1853 with politician and...
. His scholarship of the 1970s and 80s worked to expand the canon of modern American poetry, and since the 1990s he has increasingly focused on issues in higher education. In the words of Alan Wald, "With the appearance of Manifesto of a Tenured Radical in 1997, Cary became the national exemplar of the committed scholar who conceived of the advance of his own career in the context of the amelioration of the rank-and-file of the academic community; more specifically, graduate students, part-time employees, and campus workers." http://www.cary-nelson.org/nelson/aboutcarynelson.html Nelson has also played an important role in promoting cultural studies
Cultural studies
Cultural studies is an academic field grounded in critical theory and literary criticism. It generally concerns the political nature of contemporary culture, as well as its historical foundations, conflicts, and defining traits. It is, to this extent, largely distinguished from cultural...
in the American academy, and in 1981 he founded the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory
Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory
The Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory is an interdisciplinary program developed within the Graduate College and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign...
.
Nelson was elected to a two-year term as president of the AAUP
AAUP
AAUP may refer to:*American Association of University Professors*Association of American University Presses...
in April 2006. For the previous six years, he had been the second vice president of the AAUP. In April 2006 he was arrested, along with over 50 others (including Jane Buck, the outgoing president of the AAUP), as part of a unionization effort by New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
's graduate teaching assistants. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/04/28/nyu
Nelson has been an outspoken critic of the corporatization
Corporatization
Corporatization refers to the transformation of state assets or agencies into state-owned corporations in order to introduce corporate management techniques to their administration...
of university education in general and has also been involved in various local interventions; he has recently been involved in the widespread academic response to the so-called "Five Year Plan" for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida
University of Florida
The University of Florida is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a campus in Gainesville, Florida. The university traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September 1906...
.
He is the author of twenty five books, including Manifesto of a Tenured Radical and Revolutionary Memory: Recovering the Poetry of the American Left. His academic focus is on modern American poetry. http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/newsroom/pressreleases/Scholar-Activist+Cary+Nelson+Elected+AAUP+President.htm