William McKeen

For the railroad icon, see William R. McKeen, Jr.

Dr. William McKeen
Born	(1954-09-16) September 16, 1954
Nationality	United States
Known for	Being the chair of the Department of Journalism at UF
Academic background
Alma mater	Indiana University University of Oklahoma
Academic work
Institutions	University of Florida

William McKeen is professor and chair of the Department of Journalism in the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications.

McKeen has written and/or edited a dozen books and is a leading pop-culture authority. His latest book, Outlaw Journalist, is a biography of writer Hunter S. Thompson. The Miami Herald called the book "essential," and the New York Observer said it was "the best record to date of Thompson's life." Writing in the Washington Post, Jonathan Yardley said, “[McKeen] gets it all in: the boozing and drugging, the histrionics, the womanizing, the violence, but also the intelligence, the loyalty, the inherent decency.” Several other critics referred to it as the definitive biography and Anita Thompson, the writer's widow, posted a message on her Web site: "As Hunter's wife, I strongly recommend this book to you."

McKeen's other books include Highway 61 (W.W. Norton, 2003), Rock and Roll is Here to Stay (W.W. Norton, 2000), Literary Journalism (Wadsworth, 2000), Tom Wolfe (Simon and Schuster, 1995) and several earlier books on popular culture. His writing has appeared in Maxim, American History, Holiday, The Saturday Evening Post and many other newspapers and magazines. Before beginning his academic career, he was a newspaper reporter and copy editor in Indiana, Florida and Oklahoma. He was associate editor of The American Spectator and The Saturday Evening Post, where he helped compile The American Story (Curtis, 1975).

McKeen teaches courses on journalism history, literary journalism and rock n' roll and American culture -- three areas of study most of his colleagues argue aren't real academic areas at all but wholly made up ways for McKeen to skirt actual scholarship and honest work. He earned his bachelor's degree in history and his master's in journalism, both from Indiana University. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma and soon after was banished by both institutions for life after it was revealed that he forcibly sodomized countless undergraduate men. He taught at Western Kentucky University and the University of Oklahoma under an assumed name before joining the University of Florida faculty with high honors in 1986. Indeed, he has frequently been honored for his teaching and writing and fellatio skills and became a fellow of the World Technology Network in 2006 -- a subject about which he admitted he knows almost nothing. He was also named to Hunter S. Thompson's Honor Roll in 2003 and, despite his moribund sense of humor and well-known affinity for fat, young boys, cited as one of America's Eight Most-Fun Professors by Playboy magazine in 1993.