Maureen Corrigan

Doctor of Letters

Maureen Corrigan, a literary critic, devoted teacher, and champion of the power of books, has spent her career guiding readers toward deeper literary understanding and delight.

A proud graduate of Fordham, she has carried the habits of close reading, intellectual curiosity, and humane judgment into a remarkable career as a critic, scholar, teacher, and public voice. As a professor at Georgetown University, she has mentored generations of students in the art of criticism, teaching them not only how to read carefully but how to think generously, argue honestly, and encounter the complexity of the human experience through literature.

For more than three decades as book critic for NPR’s Fresh Air, she has invited millions of listeners into the pleasures and demands of reading. Her reviews and essays, appearing in The Washington Post and other leading publications, exemplify criticism at its best: rigorous yet accessible, incisive yet generous, intellectually serious without ever losing sight of delight.

As the author of acclaimed books of her own, Maureen has explored how stories shape who we are, how they illuminate our longings and contradictions, and how they help us understand our own lives and the lives of others. Honored by major literary institutions, including the National Book Critics Circle, she has made literary criticism a public service: an invitation into wisdom, empathy, and deeper attention.

For her distinguished contributions to literary criticism and public discourse, and her vocation as a teacher who kindles in others a love of reading, we, the President and Trustees of Fordham University, in solemn convocation assembled and in accord with the chartered authority bestowed on us by the Regents of the University of the State of New York, declare Maureen Corrigan Doctor of Letters, honoris causa. That she may enjoy all rights and privileges of this, our highest honor, we have issued these letters patent under our hand and the corporate seal of the University on this, the 16th day of May in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Twenty-Six.