I was born in Providence, Rhode Island and grew up in nearby Cranston. I graduated from Brown University in 1979 and took my Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Harvard in 1988 with a dissertation on the novels of Thomas Pynchon. Since 1990 I have taught in the Department of Literature at Claremont McKenna College, where I am now the Waldo W. Neikirk Professor of Literature.
My scholarly interests center upon modern literature and culture, literature and philosophy, and literary theory. You can contact me at jfarrell@cmc.edu.