Charles B. Harris is Emeritus Professor of English at Illinois State University, where he chaired the English Department for fifteen years (1979-1994). He is the founding director of the Unit for Contemporary Literature, a national center for the literary arts, which served as an umbrella organization for several literary presses and journals, including Dalkey Archive Press, FC2 (Fiction Collective Two), American Book Review, Review of Contemporary Fiction, and Context, among others. His books include Contemporary American Novelists of the Absurd (1971), Passionate Virtuosity: The Fiction of John Barth (1983), The Holodeck in the Garden: Science and Technology in Contemporary American Fiction (2004), and John Barth: A Body of Words (2016); his articles on American fiction and the profession of English studies have appeared in numerous scholarly journals and essay collections; and he is publisher emeritus of American Book Review. He is past president of the Association of Departments of English (ADE). In 1997, the Modern Language Association honored him with the Francis Andrew March Award for Exceptional Service to the Profession of English. An Arts Advocate, Harris has served on the Illinois Arts Alliance Board of Directors and the Illinois Center for the Book Board of Directors, and he currently serves on the boards of the independent literary publishers Dalkey Archive Press and FC2. He has also served on various arts panels and juries (e.g., Illinois Arts Council, National Endowment for the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowships). Since his retirement from academia, Harris has returned to an early interest in acting, appearing in several independent films, commercials, and industrials.