Stephen A. Fredman
Professor
Specialty
Twentieth-century American poetry
Degrees
B.F.A., California Institute of the Arts; M.A., California State University, Sonoma; Ph.D., Stanford University
Profile
Stephen Fredman's field is twentieth-century American poetry and poetics. His first book, Poet's Prose: The Crisis in American Verse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), is concerned with the theoretical and historical conditions that make contemporary poetry viable. His second study, The Grounding of American Poetry: Charles Olson and the Emersonian Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), examines the tradition of avant-garde writers in America. His third book, A Menorah for Athena: Charles Reznikoff and the Jewish Dilemmas of Objectivist Poetry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), discusses modern American poetry and Jewish identity. He is at work on a new book, tentatively titled "Grand Collage: Robert Duncan and California Culture." His research and teaching interests include the use of performance in postmodern art, the West Coast aesthetic, and the impact of collage on twentieth-century arts. He has been awarded NEH, ACLS, and Lilly fellowships.
Recent Publications
"Surrealism Meets Kabbalah: The Place of Semina in Mid-Century California Poetry and Art." In American Poetry: Walt Whitman to the Present, edited by Robert Rehder and Patrick Vincent. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, forthcoming 2006.
"Forms of Visionary Collage: Harry Smith and the Poets." In Harry Smith: The Avant-Garde in the American Vernacular. Edited by Robert Cantwell, Andrew Perchuk, and Rani Singh. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, forthcoming 2006.
A Concise Companion to Twentieth-Century American Poetry. Edited by Stephen Fredman. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.
"Mysticism: Neo-paganism, Buddhism, and Christianity." In A Concise Companion toTwentieth-Century American Poetry. Edited by Stephen Fredman, 191-211. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.
"Surrealism Meets Kabbalah: Wallace Berman and the Semina Poets." In Semina Culture: Wallace Berman and His Circle. Edited by Andrew Duncan and Kristine McKenna, 40-48.New York: D.A.P./Santa Monica Museum of Art, 2005.
Recent Honors and Awards
David Gray Chair Library Fellow, SUNY Buffalo, May-June 2006
A Menorah for Athena nominated for Koret Jewish Book Award, 2002
Contact Information
356 O'Shaughnessy Hall
(574) 631-7226
sfredman@nd.edu