Stephen Miller is a freelance writer and the author of five books, including Conversation: A History of a Declining Art. His articles on literary, political, and cultural questions have appeared in many journals in the United States and Great Britain, including the American Scholar, the Times Literary Supplement, Partisan Review, and Sewanee Review, among others. He has an M.A. in English from Yale and a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Rutgers.