Charlie Bertsch is a writer, editor and teacher currently living in Tucson, Arizona. His teaching and research interests include cultural studies (with an emphasis on popular music), contemporary American fiction and non-fiction, New Media, film, and the history of aesthetics.

At present, he is working on three books: one about the persistence of punk as a means of expression; one about the "documentary impulse" in prose and visual media; and a third that seeks to revitalize the category of the political novel as a means of understanding post-WWII American fiction.

He has presented numerous presentations derived from these projects at scholarly gatherings such as the Experience Music Project's annual Pop Conference in Seattle, the annual conferences of the American Studies Association and the Cultural Studies Association; and the Louisville Conference on Literature After 1900.

In addition to this academic work, Bertsch has contributed book and music reviews, interviews, and short features to a variety of publications including Punk Planet, Phoenix New Times, and h2so4. He is presently the Music Editor at Zeek magazine. Previously, he held the same post at Tikkun magazine, where he also wrote regularly on a wide range of cultural matters, including this piece on the iPod. You can send him review copies or other delights to this address:

Charlie Bertsch
P.O. Box #35603
Tucson, AZ 85704
USA

You may also read about his middle-aged, bürgerliches life and loves in De File, his personal weblog, in which he brings a fondness for dashingly subordinate clause-filled prose to bear on contemporary politics, popular music, sports, his obsessive-compulsive relation to "memorabilia" and his wonderful daughter. It looks like this: