Walter Cohen is Professor of Comparative Literature and former chair of the department. He has published Drama of a Nation: Public Theater in Renaissance England and Spain as well as numerous articles on Renaissance literature, literary criticism, and the history of the novel. He is one of four editors of The Norton Shakespeare (2nd ed. 2008) and is currently completing a critical study entitled European Literature (under contract with Princeton University Press), on the history of European literature in relation to the non-European world.
Curriculum vitae: short version
wic1@cornell.edu
Selected Publications
Books
Drama of a Nation: Public Theater in Renaissance England and Spain. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1985.
The Norton Shakespeare Based on the Oxford Edition. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt (General Editor), Walter Cohen, Jean E. Howard, and Katharine Eisaman Maus. New York: Norton, 1997; 2nd ed. 2008.
European Literature. On the history of European literature’s relationship to other regions of the world. Under contract, Princeton University Press.
Articles
"The Merchant of Venice and the Possibilities of Historical Criticism." ELH, 49 (1982), 765-89. Rpt. in a) Materialist Shakespeare: A History. Ed. Ivo Kamps. London: Verso, 1995, pp. 71-92; b) The Merchant of Venice. Ed. Martin Coyle. New Casebooks. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: MacMillan, 1998, pp. 45-72; c) Shakespeare Criticism, Vol. 77. The Gale Group, 2003?; d) The Norton Critical “Merchant of Venice.” Ed. Leah Marcus. New York: Norton, 2005, excerpt: pp. 197-203 of Drama of a Nation.
"The Making of Nabokov's Fiction." Twentieth Century Literature, 29 (1983), 333-50.
"Political Criticism of Shakespeare." In Shakespeare Reproduced: The Text in Ideology and History. Ed. Jean Howard and Marian O'Connor. London: Methuen, 1987, pp. 18-46.
"The Novel and Cultural Revolution." Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Pädagogische Hochschule "Karl Liebknecht" Potsdam, 32 (1988), 29-47.
"The Concept of World Literature." In Comparative Literature East and West. Ed. Cornelia Moore. Honolulu: East-West Center, 1989, pp. 3-10.
"Interview: Who's Afraid of Martin Bernal?" Bookpress, Vol. 1, no. 3 (Nov. 1991), pp. 1, 8, 11. Expanded version: "An Interview with Martin Bernal." Social Text, No. 35 (Summer 1993), pp. 1-24.
"Marxist Criticism." In Redrawing the Boundaries: The Transformation of English and American Literary Studies. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt and Giles Gunn. New York: MLA, 1992, pp. 320-48.
"The Discourse of Empire in the Renaissance." In Cultural Authority in Golden Age Spain. Ed. Marina S. Brownlee and Hans-Ulrich Gumbrecht. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1995, pp. 260-83.
“The Economics of Doctoral Education in Literature.” PMLA, 115 (2000), 1164-87.
“The Uniqueness of Spain.” In Echoes and Inscriptions: Comparative Approaches to Early Modern Hispanic Literatures. Ed. Barbara Simerka and Chris B. Weimer. Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell Univ. Press, 2000, pp. 17-29.
“The Undiscovered Country: Shakespeare and Mercantile Geography.” In Marxist Shakespeares. Ed. Jean E. Howard and Scott Cutler Shershow. London: Routledge, 2001, pp. 128-58.
“The Literature of Empire in the Renaissance.” Modern Philology, 102:1 (August 2004), 1-34.
“Don Quijote and the Intercontinental History of the Novel.” Early Modern Culture, No. 4, 2004. http//eserver.org/emc/default.html.
“Eurasian Fiction.” The Global South, 1: 2 (Fall 2007), 100-119.
Invited Papers Alabama, Berkeley, SUNY Binghamton, Brown, SUNY Buffalo, Columbia, Emory, Harvard, Hawaii, Humboldt (Germany), Johns Hopkins, Maryland, Oxford, Pennsylvania, Potsdam (Germany), Princeton, UC San Diego, Stanford, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Yale, as well as various local, regional, national, and international conferences
Teaching Positions At Cornell since 1980; Ass’t, Assoc, Full Professor, Comparative Literature; member of the graduate fields of Comparative Literature, English, Romance Studies, Theatre Arts
Selected Administrative Positions
Cornell: Director of Undergraduate Studies, Director of Graduate Studies, Acting Chair, Comparative Literature; Chair, Romance Studies; Dean, Graduate School; Vice Provost; Senior Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences (beginning 2009)
External: President, Executive Committee, MLA Division on Comparative Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Literature; President, Association of Graduate Schools; NSF panel on the Survey of Earned Doctorates and Survey of Doctorate Recipients; National Research Council doctoral program evaluation methodology committee
Editor PMLA, Advisory Committee; Renaissance Drama, editorial board; Mediations
External Evaluation
Programs and Organizations: SUNY Buffalo Graduate School; Emory Graduate School; Literature Department, UC San Diego; Comparative Cultural and Literary Studies Graduate Interdisciplinary Program, Arizona, Tucson
Presses: Cornell, Fairleigh Dickinson, Harvard, Methuen (Routledge), Wisconsin
Promotions and Appointments (Comparative Literature, English, German, Spanish): Berkeley, Brandeis, Columbia, Duke, Georgia, Harvard, Illinois, Irvine, Johns Hopkins, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Rochester, Rutgers, Stanford, Stirling, SUNY Buffalo, UCLA, Virginia, Yale
Education
1974-80: Ph.D., Comparative Literature, University of California, Berkeley
1972-74: M.A., Comparative Literature, University of California, Berkeley
1967-71: B.A., English, Stanford University
Academic Honors
2005-06: Faculty Fellowship, Society for the Humanities, Cornell University
1988-90: Mellon Professorship in Teaching
1986: Clark Distinguished Teaching Award, Cornell University
Teaching and Advising
Teaching: all levels of the curriculum from freshman composition to graduate seminars on a wide range of topics.
Advising: usually about five-eight undergraduates; currently, dissertation committees of 12 students, chair of 5; on about 70 others since 1980; most have obtained tenure-track positions.
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