He is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Literature at the University of California, San Diego, where he served as the Dean of Arts and Humanities from 2009 to 2014.
He previously held the Avalon Foundation Professorship in Humanities at Stanford University.
[1] He was born in Brooklyn, New York City, and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wesleyan University in 1976.
In 2009, he joined the faculty of UC-San Diego as Dean of Arts and Humanities and Distinguished Professor of Literature.
[2] He has received grants and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Huntington Library.