Scott McLemee

Scott McLemee is an essayist and critic who has written for numerous magazines, newspapers, and online publications in the United States and abroad. He was a contributing editor to Lingua Franca, a much-celebrated magazine on academic life from the 1990s, and later covered the humanities as a senior writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education. Since 2005 he has contributed a column on books and ideas for the online news journal Inside Higher Ed.

In 2014 he received the National Book Critics Circle award for excellence in reviewing and was a National Magazine Award finalist the following year. The editor of two volumes of writings by the Caribbean political and cultural figure C.L.R. James, with two more in preparation, he appeared in the documentary “Every Cook Can Govern: The Life, Impact & Works of C.L.R. James.” He and his wife Rita live in Washington, D.C. with their two cats.