Grudin graduated from Harvard, and earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of California, Berkeley in 1969. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship for 1992-1993. Until 1998 he was a professor of English at the University of Oregon.
Grudin is the author of the metafictional novel Book, Mighty Opposites: Shakespeare and Renaissance Contrariety, The Grace of Great Things: Creativity and Innovation, On Dialogue: An Essay in Free Thought, Time and the Art of Living, The Most Amazing Thing, and, most recently, American Vulgar: The Politics of Manipulation Versus the Culture of Awareness.