LESLIE A. FIEDLER

Curriculum Vita

 


PERSONAL DATA

Leslie Fiedler was born in Newark, New Jersey on March 8, l9l7. He was married in l939 to Margaret Shipley, divorced in l973. The same year he married Sally Andersen. He had three daughters, three sons and two stepsons.  Leslie Fiedler died in Buffalo, New York, on January 29, 2003.


EDUCATION

Fiedler was educated in the public schools of Newark, was granted a BA from New York University (Heights) in l938, an MA from the University of Wisconsin in l939, and a Ph.D. from the latter institution in l94l. He did post-doctoral work at Harvard in l946-47 and studied at the Japanese Language School (University of Colorado) during l943-44.


MILITARY SERVICE

Fiedler served as a Japanese Interpreter with the United States Navy from l943 through l945. During that time he was stationed in Hawaii, Guam, Iwo Jima, China and Okinawa.


TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Fiedler was a member of the staff at Montana State University from l94l to l963, during which period he served a two-year term as Chairman of the Department of English (l954-56). He was also Director of the Humanities Course.

Earlier teaching experience included an Assistant Professorship in the Department of English at the University of Wisconsin in the academic year l940-4l.

In l964 Fiedler was appointed Professor of English at the State University of New York at Buffalo, serving as Departmental Chairman from l974 to l977.  He continued mentoring graduate students until the time of his death.

He was a Junior Fellow of the Indiana School of Letters from l954 to l973 and was an Associate Fellow of the Calhoun College in Yale University. He served as a member of the Developmental Faculty of Empire State College.

During leaves Fiedler taught at the Universities of Bologna, Rome, Paris, Venice, Athens, Sussex and Princeton and held summer appointments at New York University, Columbia and the Universities of Vermont and Indiana.


LECTURING

Fiedler lectured widely before audiences at universities and colleges throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, England, Italy, Tunisia, Ireland, France, Germany, Japan, India, Greece, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Brazil, the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, Israel, Venezuela and Korea.


OTHER POSTS AND POSITIONS

Fiedler was a member of the Woodrow Wilson Committee of Regions XII and III, an Advisory Editor in English for St. Martin's Press, an Associate Editor of Ramparts, The Running Man, Quarterly Review of Film Studies, Studies in Black Literature. He was a contributing editor of Literature and Medicine and twice a fiction judge for the National Book Awards (l946 and l973). He also served on the Editorial Board of Witness.

Fiedler was a vice president of the Popular Culture Association and a member of the board of directors of the Freedom to Read Foundation and a member of the advisory council of the Empire State Youth Theatre.

He was a member of the board of governors during the formative period of the Artists' Fellowship Program of the New York Foundation for the Arts.


AWARDS AND HONORS

He held a Rockefeller Fellowship (l946-47), two Fulbright Fellowships (l951-53, l961-62), an ACLS Grant during the summer of l960 as well as the summer of l96l. He held simultaneously the Kenyon Review Fellowship in Criticism and the Christian Gauss Fellowship at Princeton (l956) and  was granted a Guggenheim Fellowship in l970-7l.

Early in his career Fiedler won the Furioso Poetry Prize, had a prize story reprinted in the Martha Foley Collection, and was granted a $l000 award by the American Institute of Arts and Letters (l957) for "excellence in creative writing."

The Samuel L. Clemens Chair in English was created for Fiedler in l973 at SUNY Buffalo, where he held the chair until his death.

In l985 Fiedler was the recipient of the Alumni Award of New York University (Heights). In February l987 he was named Distinguished Professor, State University of New York.

In l988 he was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters as a member of the Department of Literature.

In May l989 Fiedler was the recipient of the Chancellor Charles P. Norton Medal, awarded by the State University of New York at Buffalo.

In December l994 Fiedler was awarded the Hubbell Medal for Lifetime Contribution to the Study of American Literature by the Modern Language Association.


ORGANIZATIONS

Fiedler had been a member of the A.A.U.P., M.L.A., English Institute, PEN Club and Dante Society of America.


PUBLICATIONS

Fiedler wrote with others Leaves of Grass One Hundred Years After, Stanford l955, and The Riddle of Shakespeare's Sonnets, l962.

His books include the following:
An End to Innocence: Essays on Culture and Politics, Beacon Press, l955.
The Art of the Essay, Thomas Y. Crowell, l958; revised edition l969.
No! In Thunder: Essays on Myth and Literature, Beacon Press, l960.
Pull Down Vanity and Other Stories, Lippincott, l962.
The Second Stone: A Love Story, Stein and Day, l963.
Waiting for the End, Stein and Day, l964.
Back to China, Stein and Day, l965.
The Continuing Debate, (with Jacob Vinocur) St. Martin's Press, l966.
Love and Death in the American Novel(revised) Stein and Day, l966.
The Last Jew in America, Stein and Day, l966.
The Return of the Vanishing American, Stein and Day, l968.
Nude Croquet and Other Stories, Stein and Day, l969.
Being Busted, Stein and Day, l970.
The Collected Essays of Leslie Fiedler, Stein and Day, l972.
The Stranger in Shakespeare, Stein and Day, l972.
Published as five paperback volumes, l973:

An End to Innocence
No! In Thunder
Unfinished Business
To the Gentiles
Cross the Border, Close the Gap

The Messengers Will Come No More, Stein and Day, l974.
In Dreams Awake: Anthology of Science Fiction, Dell, l976.
A Fiedler Reader, Stein and Day, l977.
Freaks: Myths and Images of the Secret Self, Simon and Schuster, l978.
The Inadvertent Epic, Canadian Broadcasting Company, l979.
Olaf Stapledon, Oxford University Press, l982.
What Was Literature?, Simon and Schuster, l982.
Fiedler on the Roof: Essays on Literature and Jewish Identity, Godine, l99l.
Tyranny of the Normal, David Godine, l996.
Love and Death in the American Novel (reprint), Delkay Archive Press, l998.

 


Rev. October 2003