McGurl received his B.A. from Harvard University and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Johns Hopkins University. He has also worked as a journalist for The New York Times and The New York Review of Books.

Books

• The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing. (Harvard University Press, 2009).

• The Novel Art: Elevations of American Fiction after Henry James. (Princeton University Press, 2001).

Articles and essays

• " A Response to Elif Batuman's Review of The Program Era in the London Review of Books." Official Website: The Program Era Reviews, October 4/October 10, 2010.
• " The Zombie Renaissance," n+1 no.9 spring 2010.
• " Understanding Iowa: Flannery O'Connor B.A., M.F.A." American Literary History, Summer 2007.
• " Learning from Little Tree: The Political Education of the Counterculture" Yale Journal of Criticism, Fall 2005.
• " The Program Era: Pluralisms of Postwar American Fiction." Critical Inquiry, Fall 2005.
• " Social Geometries: Taking Place in Henry James" Representations 68, Autumn 1999, 59-83.
• " Making 'Literature' of It:Hammett and High Culture." American Literary History, 9.4, Winter 1997, 702-717.
• " Making It Big: Picturing the Radio Age in King Kong." Critical Inquiry, Spring 1996.