AustLit

John McLaren was educated at several Victorian schools before studying arts and education at the University of Melbourne. After graduating, McLaren taught at the high school level for ten years and lectured at the Secondary Teachers College for five years. During his career in high school education, McLaren wrote a number of important reports and books on education topics.

In 1971 he received an MA from Monash University for his thesis on Patrick White. He was subsequently appointed lecturer at Toowomba's Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education, later becoming Head of the School of Arts. His 1982 PhD thesis for Melbourne University investigated the development of literary and humanities studies with a particular emphasis on the ideas of F. R. Leavis. In the 1980s and 1990s McLaren also published guides to Australian literary history and introductions to the work of specific authors such as Patrick White and Xavier Herbert. He has also written books on multiculturalism and Pacific studies, and examined the development of post-war writing in Writing in Hope and Fear: Literature as Politics in Postwar Australia (1996).

McLaren has played a significant part in several literary magazines. He was associate editor of Overland from 1966 and editor from 1993-1996. McLaren was also the foundation editor of the second series of the Australian Book Review, serving as editor from 1978 to 1986. He was Professor of Humanities at the Victoria University of Technology on his retirement from academic life in 1997, but he has maintained his connection with the university as an Honorary Professorial Associate.