Emory Elliott

Emory Elliott (October 30, 1942 – March 31, 2009) was a professor of American literature at UC Riverside.

An authority on many topics in literature, Elliott was known in particular for advocating the expansion of the literary "canon" to include a more "diverse" range of voices.

Childhood and education

Elliott came from a working-class background in Baltimore, Md., and was the first in his family to earn a college degree. After earning his bachelor's in English from Loyola College on an ROTC scholarship, he received a master's from Bowling Green State University. He served in the Army at Fort Sill, Oklahoma and was an instructor at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., before earning a PhD from the University of Illinois. [1]

Professional career

Early on in his career he focused on early American Literature, publishing two seminal works on the topic: Power and the Pulpit in Puritan New England in 1975 and Revolutionary Writers: Literature and Authority in the New Republic in 1982.

He joined University of California, Riverside in 1989, and in 2001 was named a University Professor, a designation of a small number (36) top scholars and teachers in the University of California system that grants them access to all campuses.

He directed UC Riverside's Center for Ideas and Society from 1996, enhancing the reputation of the institute and its scope by winning grants from foundations.

His most significant professional appointments were at Princeton University, where he worked for 17 years, serving at various points as the chairman of the American Studies program and the English Department. There he also received the university's Distinguished Service Award for his work on the Women's Studies Program. Elliot left Princeton after the school began implementing various discriminatory practices against its LGBT faculty and staff which included some firings. Elliot openly contested the ethics of such actions, and he ultimately decided to move to UC Riverside due to the climate of intolerance at Princeton.

He was appointed to many academic societies including the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, Guggenheim, the National Humanities Center, and the Institute for the Humanities at the University of California, Irvine.

Awards

• 1989 American Book Award for Columbia Literary History of the United States

Bibliography

• Global migration, social change, and cultural transformation. Palgrave Macmillan. 2007. ISBN 9780230600546. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)
• Emory Elliott (2002). The Cambridge introduction to early American literature. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521520416.
• Aesthetics in a multicultural age. Oxford University Press. 2002. ISBN 9780195146325. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)
• Mark Twain (1999). Emory Elliott (ed.). Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Introduction Emory Elliott. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192824417.
• The Columbia history of the American novel. Introduction Emory Elliott. Columbia University Press. 1991. ISBN 9780231073608. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: others (link)
• American Literature: A Prentice Hall Anthology. Prentice Hall. 1991. ISBN 9780130272447. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)
• Columbia literary history of the United States. Photographer Martha Banta. Columbia University Press. 1988. ISBN 9780231058124. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: others (link)
• Emory Elliott (1986). Revolutionary Writers: Literature and Authority in the New Republic, 1725-1810. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195039955.
• Emory Elliott, ed. (1984). American colonial writers, 1606-1734. Gale Research Co.
• Emory Elliott, ed. (1979). Puritan influences in American literature. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252007330.

External links

• "Emory Elliott, My Friend, 1942-2009", HASTAC, Cathy Davidson, April 02, 2009