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Robert Pogue Harrison
Robert Pogue Harrison is an American literary scholar, cultural critic, and public intellectual. He is Professor Emeritus of French and Italian and Rosina Pierotti Professor Emeritus of Italian Literature at Stanford University. Harrison is known for his studies on Dante, and medieval Italian poetry as well as for his broader philosophical and cultural reflections on nature, mortality, and the human condition. He is also the creator and host of the long-running literary podcast Entitled Opinions (About Life and Literature).
He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2007. In October 2014, he was decorated with the title of Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.
Harrison was born in İzmir, Turkey, where he lived until the age of twelve.
Following the death of his American father, Harrison moved with his family to Rome, the native city of his Italian mother. He attended the Overseas School of Rome, an international school where he studied under teachers from diverse backgrounds, including the Irish poet Desmond O’Grady. Harrison has often credited this period, particularly the influence of his English teachers in the early 1970s, with shaping his literary sensibilities.
He went on to pursue higher education in the United States, earning a bachelor’s degree in Humanities from Santa Clara University in 1976. After a period of exploration, he entered graduate school at Cornell University, where he completed a doctorate in Romance Studies in 1984 with a dissertation on Dante’s Vita Nuova.
In 1985, he accepted a visiting assistant professorship in the Department of French and Italian at Stanford. In 1986, he joined the faculty as an assistant professor. He was granted tenure in 1992, and was promoted to full professor in 1995. In 1997, Stanford offered him the Rosina Pierotti Chair. In 2002, he was named chair of the Department of French and Italian, which he continued to be until 2010. In September 2014, he once again became chair of the department. He retired in 2024 and is now professor emeritus.
He began his academic career as a Dante scholar, publishing The Body of Beatrice in 1988. His work quickly expanded to concern itself broadly with the Western literary and philosophical tradition, focusing on the human place in nature and what he calls "the humic foundations" of human culture.
In 1992, he published Forests: The Shadow of Civilization, a wide-ranging history of the religious, mythological, literary, and philosophical role of forests in the Western imagination.
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Robert Pogue Harrison
Robert Pogue Harrison is an American literary scholar, cultural critic, and public intellectual. He is Professor Emeritus of French and Italian and Rosina Pierotti Professor Emeritus of Italian Literature at Stanford University. Harrison is known for his studies on Dante, and medieval Italian poetry as well as for his broader philosophical and cultural reflections on nature, mortality, and the human condition. He is also the creator and host of the long-running literary podcast Entitled Opinions (About Life and Literature).
He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2007. In October 2014, he was decorated with the title of Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.
Harrison was born in İzmir, Turkey, where he lived until the age of twelve.
Following the death of his American father, Harrison moved with his family to Rome, the native city of his Italian mother. He attended the Overseas School of Rome, an international school where he studied under teachers from diverse backgrounds, including the Irish poet Desmond O’Grady. Harrison has often credited this period, particularly the influence of his English teachers in the early 1970s, with shaping his literary sensibilities.
He went on to pursue higher education in the United States, earning a bachelor’s degree in Humanities from Santa Clara University in 1976. After a period of exploration, he entered graduate school at Cornell University, where he completed a doctorate in Romance Studies in 1984 with a dissertation on Dante’s Vita Nuova.
In 1985, he accepted a visiting assistant professorship in the Department of French and Italian at Stanford. In 1986, he joined the faculty as an assistant professor. He was granted tenure in 1992, and was promoted to full professor in 1995. In 1997, Stanford offered him the Rosina Pierotti Chair. In 2002, he was named chair of the Department of French and Italian, which he continued to be until 2010. In September 2014, he once again became chair of the department. He retired in 2024 and is now professor emeritus.
He began his academic career as a Dante scholar, publishing The Body of Beatrice in 1988. His work quickly expanded to concern itself broadly with the Western literary and philosophical tradition, focusing on the human place in nature and what he calls "the humic foundations" of human culture.
In 1992, he published Forests: The Shadow of Civilization, a wide-ranging history of the religious, mythological, literary, and philosophical role of forests in the Western imagination.