Born: 1950.

Education: Columbia, BA, 1972; Indiana University, PhD, English, 1981.

William Germano's career has spanned academic publishing, teaching, scholarship, and administration: 1978–85 Columbia University Press, editor-inchief 1982–85; 1986–2005 vice president and publishing director, Routledge publishers (Taylor & Francis group); dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, professor of English literature, the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, 2006–2016; and professor of English, Cooper Union, 2016–present. As editorial director of the leading theory publisher during two key decades, he had decisive impact on the direction of literary and cultural theory. He was a force in establishing queer theory, cultural studies, and the New Historicism.

Publications

Getting It Published: A Guide for Scholars and Anyone Else Serious about Serious Books (3rd ed. 2016), From Dissertation to Book (2nd ed. 2013), Eye Chart (2017), and Syllabus: The Remarkable Unremarkable Document That Changes Everything (2020). What Opera Knows is under contract to the University of Illinois Press. He has also written on Powell and Pressburger's 1951 film The Tales of Hoffmann (2013) in the British Film Institute Film Classics series. His essays have appeared in PMLA, Minnesota Review, Scholarly Publishing, SPAN, Publishing Research Quarterly, PNR, Opera Quarterly, University of Toronto Quarterly, The Critical Pulse: Thirty-Two Conversations with Contemporary Critics (2012), and The Humanities and Public Life (2014). His influential articles include “Why Interdisciplinarity Isn't Enough,” The Practice of Cultural Analysis (1999); “Colloquy Live: When Bad Titles Happen to Good Scholarly Books,” Chronicle of Higher Education (2001); “Choosing the Right Title for Your Book,” Chronicle of Higher Education (2001); “The Way We Read Now,” Chronicle of Higher Education (2001); “Surviving the Review Process,” Journal of Scholarly Publishing (October 2001); “In Writing and Publishing, Think Inside the Box,” Chronicle of Higher Education (2002); “If Dissertations Could Talk, What Would They Say?,” Chronicle of Higher Education (2003); “The Scholarly Lecture: How to Stand and Deliver,” Chronicle of Higher Education (2003); “Parlez-Vous Anything?,” Chronicle of Higher Education (2004); “Passive Is Spoken Here,” PN Review (2005); “Passive Is Spoken Here,” Chronicle of Higher Education, vol. LI, no. 33 (April 22, 2005); “Final Thoughts,” Profession (2005); “What Pictures Don't Do,” CAA Newsletter (2007);