I have mentioned before my weakness for over-prolific alpha geeks and librarians. There is at least one over-prolific alpha academic who inspires me, and that is Michael Bérubé. Bérubé was on the Colorado College campus today, and I was able to hear him speak to a faculty luncheon today on “Cultural studies in the Bush era” (though I missed his talk tonight, entitled “Academic Freedom: Fragile as Ever”).

I believe it was in the mid-1990s when I first started reading his essays in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Bérubé often writes about the academy and the practice of academics and scholars in a style that is readable and witty, but still substantive.

If that long list of essays isn’t enough to qualify him as an over-prolific alpha academic, how about the fact that he has not one but two new books out: What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts? and Rhetorical Occassions: Essays on Humans and the Humanities?

And then there is his blog, to which he posts almost every day (when CC English professor, Barry Sarchett, introduced Bérubé at lunch today, he mentioned the blog and I blurted out “and he updated it about an hour ago!”), where his posts are frequently over a thousand words, and where getting over one hundred comments on a post is routine. He writes about the academy, politics, culture, and his family in a way that seems effortless and is often moving and thought-provoking.

His talk today was taken from his work in progress, The Left at War. Being aimed at faculty, many of his references sailed straight over my head, but some of his main points–that the Left has largely passed on the question of what should be done in the wake of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the spread of Islamism except to say “no, that’s not the right response”; that Noam Chomsky’s elaborate claims do nothing to help sway the United States further to the left; and that no one thinks that Cultural Studies has anything to say about the Bush era since Cult Studs are largely associated with the TV-watching wing of the academy–were plain enough.

I’m sad that I’m missing Bérubé’s talk tonight. I’d like to hear him speak on academic freedom, and I’d like to hear his talk pitched to a more general audience.

But it was exciting to meet in person a man I’ve long admired. I didn’t quite squee (I don’t think), but it may have been obvious that I was a shameless fanboy in the way that I shook his hand several times (plus the aforementioned blurt about his blog). At least I kept my camera in my pocket.