Andrew Delbanco is Mendelson Family Chair of American Studies and Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University.  He was awarded the 2011 National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama “for his writing that spans the literature of Melville and Emerson to contemporary issues in higher education.” In 2001, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and named by Time Magazine as “America’s Best Social Critic.” In 2003, he was named New York State Scholar of the Year by the New York Council for the Humanities. In 2006, he received the “Great Teacher Award” from the Society of Columbia Graduates.

Professor Delbanco is the author of many books, including, most recently, College: What it Was, Is, and Should Be (Princeton University Press, 2012), and The Abolitionist Imagination (Harvard University Press, 2012), and Melville: His World and Work (2005). Melville was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Biography, and appeared on “best books” lists in the Washington Post, Independent (London), Dallas Morning News, and TLS.  It was awarded the Lionel Trilling Award by Columbia University.

Andrew Delbanco’s essays appear regularly in the New York Review of Books, New Republic, New York Times Magazine, and other journals, on topics ranging from American literary and religious history to contemporary issues in higher education.