Biographies and Photos

Carlin Romano

Carlin Romano is the longtime literary critic of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Critic-at-Large of the Chronicle of Higher Education, and a former President of the National Book Critics Circle, the nationwide organization of more than 600 literary critics, editors and scholars.

Before joining the Inquirer, Romano worked at the Washington Post and New York Daily News. He also served as Critic-at-Large of Lingua Franca and literary columnist at the Village Voice. Over the years, his criticism has appeared in the The Nation, The New Yorker, Harper's, Slate, Salon, Tikkun, The Weekly Standard and other national publications. He was one of three finalists, along with Frank Rich of the New York Times and Joseph Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal, for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in Criticism. The Pulitzer Board cited Romano's Chronicle Critic-at-Large columns  "for bringing new vitality to the classic essay across a formidable array of topics."

In his academic life, Romano has taught philosophy at Yale, Yeshiva University, Williams College, Bennington College, Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania, where he is currently a Visiting Professor teaching media theory and philosophy. During the 2002-2003 academic year, he was a Fulbright Professor of philosophy at St. Petersburg State University in Russia. He has been a Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard, a Freedom Forum and NAJP Senior Fellow at Columbia, a McCloy Fellow and Fulbright Scholar to Germany, and the first Eisenhower Fellow from the United States to Israel. He is a 3-time winner of the Society of Professional Journalists "First Prize" in Criticism, and a recipient of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's Distinguished Arts Criticism Award.

Mr. Romano was born in Brooklyn, New York. He received his B.A. from Princeton University, an M.Phil in Philosophy from Yale University, and J.D. from Columbia Law School. He lives in Philadelphia and New York City.