Biography
Jim DeRogatis (Associate Professor—English and Creative Writing) teaches Reviewing the Arts, Cultural Criticism and the Arts, Journalism as Literature, and Music & Media in Chicago. Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, the year the Beatles arrived in America, together with Greg Kot, he co-hosts Sound Opinions, which originates at WCRX, Columbia’s student-run radio station, and is heard on some 150 public radio stations across the country as well as via podcast at soundopinions.org. DeRogatis spent 15 years as the pop music critic at the Chicago Sun-Times, and he continues to write music journalism and criticism for The New Yorker and other outlets. He also has written ten books about music, including Let It Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs, America’s Greatest Rock Critic, Staring at Sound: The True Story of Oklahoma’s Fabulous Flaming Lips, and his latest, Soulless: The Case Against R. Kelly. He jokes that he is not a musician, but he is a drummer, and the latest album by his punk band Vortis is The Miasmic Years.
Degrees
B.A., Journalism New York University 1986