Carole Kessner is professor emerita of comparative studies in the programs of Judaic studies and women’s studies at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She received her B.A. from Brandeis University and her Ph.D. from Stony Brook. Kessner is the author of The Other New York Intellectuals as well as articles on a wide range of subjects, such as the poetry of John Milton, the egalitarianism of Mordecai Kaplan and anti-Semitism in American literature. She is working on a biography of Marie Syrkin.