Russell A. Berman (born May 14, 1950)[1] is an American academic and professor specializing in German studies and Comparative literature. He serves as the Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University.[2] He is also a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.[3] He is the director of Stanford's Thinking Matters program. He previously served as associate dean and director of Stanford's Overseas Studies Program.[4]
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Berman received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University in 1972 and completed a doctorate at Washington University in St. Louis in 1979.[4] Since 1979, Berman has been on the faculty at Stanford University. In 2004, he became the editor of Telos, a quarterly journal of critical theory which has included extensive discussions of the Frankfurt School as well as Carl Schmitt.[5] In 2011, he served as president of the Modern Language Association (MLA).[6]
Together with his protégé David Tse-Chien Pan, he served on the U.S. State Department's Commission on Unalienable Rights convened by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and led by Harvard professor Mary Ann Glendon.[7]
