Issue 1989
Interviews

Neil Postman: Stirring Up Trouble About Technology, Language, and Education

Published October 27, 2006
Keywords
  • Neil Postman

Abstract

Neil Postman is a critic, writer, communications theorist, and professor of communication arts and sciences at New York University. Educated at the State University of New York and Columbia University, he holds the Christian Lindback Award for Excellence in Teaching and in 1987 was given the George Orwell Award for Clarity in Language by the National Council of Teachers of English. He was for ten years editor of Et Cetera, the journal of general semantics. He has written 17 books on a range of topics from the crisis in our schools, to the effect of television on our public and political life, to the nature of modern childhood and education. Throughout, his position is that of the “conscientious objector”— standing aside from what he sees as institutionalized mistakes or commonplace stupidities, and raising questions about them.