R. Jay Magill, Jr. has overseen the Academy's website since 2007. He is the host of the Academy's NPR program ("The Berlin Journal"), an in-house editor and writer, and the image editor of The Berlin Journal. Magill holds a PhD in American Studies from the University of Hamburg and an MA in art history and philosophy from SUNY-Stony Brook, and he has taught at the University of Lüneburg and at Harvard University, where he received a Derek Bok award. Prior to joining the Academy, he served as an executive editor and staff writer at the award-winning magazine DoubleTake, and his writing has appeared in the American Prospect, American Interest, Atlantic Monthly, Boston Globe, Foreign Policy, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Print, Spiegel Online, and Tagesspiegel, among others. Magill is the author of Chic Ironic Bitterness (Michigan, 2007) and, forthcoming from W.W. Norton in July 2012, Sincerity: How A Moral Ideal Born Five Hundred Years Ago Inspired Relgious Wars, Modern Art, Hipster Chic, and the Curious Notion that We All Have Something to Say (No Matter How Dull). Since 2005 he has been a staff illustrator at The American Interest.

Photo credit: Gunter Klötzer