Jacoby, Russell

Russell Jacoby (born April 23, 1945) is an American academic and a professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), an author and a critic of academic culture. His fields of interest are twentieth-century European and American intellectual and cultural history, specifically the history of intellectuals and education. At these points, his work, however, also crosses over into the sociology of knowledge. As of 2013, he was professor in residence (an untenured position) at the UCLA department of history, and had taken emeritus status by 2022. A documentary, Velvet Prisons: Russell Jacoby on American Academia, premiered in 2013 and played at many festivals, including the Humanity Explored Film Festival, the Davis International Film Festival, and Columbia Gorge Film Festival. He was born in New York City and educated at the University of Chicago and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He received a doctorate in 1974 from the University of Rochester. His parents were Jewish and active in left-wing politics, shifting their politics only in later life.