James Verne Dusenberry (April 7, 1906 – December 16, 1966)[1] was a publicly acclaimed scholar.
After working his way through college and dealing with tuberculosis, he earned a job located on the Flathead Indian Reservation.
Robert M. Pirsig was a personal friend and one of Dusenberry's supportive colleagues in the Montana State College English Department.
Dusenberry appeared as a pivotal thematic figure in Pirsig's book Lila: An Inquiry into Morals.
Pirsig said that "Verne was misunderstood and underestimated both as a person and as a scholar" and that he hoped the publication of Lila would "help to set the record straight.