Edward Rothstein


Edward Benjamin Rothstein is an American cultural critic. Rothstein wrote music criticism early in his career, but is best known for his critical analysis of museums and museum exhibitions.

Education

Rothstein holds a B.A. from Yale University, an M.A. in English literature from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. In addition, Rothstein did graduate work in mathematics at Brandeis University.

Career

Rothstein worked at The New York Times for 20 years, from 1994 to 2014, but took a buyout from the newspaper and joined The Wall Street Journal as a Critic at Large in 2015. He wrote in 2020 that "At The New York Times, freedom of speech gave way to group pressure, and debate turned into intimidation".
Rothstein was the chief music critic for the Times, and then the paper's cultural critic-at-large, particularly examining the reach and depth of museums, large and small. He was previously a music critic for The New Republic, and worked briefly as an editor at Macmillan's Free Press imprint in the mid-1980s.

Awards and honors

Rothstein is a two-time winner of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for music criticism, and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1991.

Writings