Kevin McLaughlin is currently the Director of the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study at Brown. He is also the Editor of Novel: A Forum for Fiction, a top ranked peer-reviewed journal that was founded at Brown University in 1967 for the purpose of promoting new approaches to the study of the novel.
Prior to his appointment at the JNBC McLaughlin served as Dean of the Faculty from 2011 to 2022. During his tenure as Dean he worked in close collaboration with departments, centers and institutes across the university to help further Brown’s strategic Plan: Building on Distinction. In their resolution awarding him the title of “Dean of the Faculty Emeritus” on behalf of the Brown Corporation President Paxson and Chancellor Mencoff noted: “Under his leadership, the university raised funds for and launched several signature academic initiatives, including the Cogut Institute for the Humanities, the Institute at Brown for the Environment and Society (IBES), and the Center for Slavery and Justice, among others.”
McLaughlin has been the recipient of research grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Program and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst. He is the author of four books, Writing in Parts: Imitation and Exchange in 19th-Century Literature (Stanford UP, 1995); Paperwork: Literature and Mass Mediacy in the Age of Paper (U of Penn P, 2005); Poetic Force: Poetry after Kant (Stanford UP, 2014); and The Philology of Life: Walter Benjamin's Critical Program (Fordham UP, 2023). McLaughlin is the co-translator with Howard Eiland of Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project (Harvard UP, 1999). He is also co-editor and co-translator, with Susan Bernstein and Peter Fenves, of Walter Benjamin: On Goethe (Stanford UP, 2025, forthcoming). His current book project, provisionally titled "Disappearing Tales," focuses on the 19th-century novel.
