Michael Bérubé is director of the program for research in the humanities at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.  He is the author of five books, including Public Access: Literary Theory and American Cultural Politics, and has written for  The New Yorker,  The Village Voice, and many academic journals.  He lives in Champaign, Illinois, with his wife, Janet Lyon, and their two sons, Nick and James.