Alan Friedman

Thaman Professor of English & Comp Lit
The University of Texas at Austin

Alan Warren Friedman specializes in modern British, Irish, and American literature, the novel, and Shakespearean drama. His five authored books include “Party Pieces: Oral Narrative and Social Performance in Joyce and Beckett.” “Fictional Death and the Modernist Enterprise” examines cultural and literary attitudes toward death. Edited books include “Samuel Beckett in Black and Red” and “Situating College English: Pedagogy and Politics at an American University,” which examines cultural and higher educational issues. He has co-edited four special journal issues on Joyce and Beckett. Currently in press is “Modernism and Literature: An Introduction and a Reader,” written and edited with Mia Carter. He coordinates the annual residency program, Actors From The London Stage (AFTLS), and advises the student organization, the Spirit of Shakespeare, which supports the residency and performs scenes from the annual AFTLS play. He has won several teaching awards, including the Plan II Honor Program’s Chad Oliver Teaching Award (2003) and the President’s Associates Teaching Excellence Award (2011), and both the English Department’s Faculty Service Award (2008) and UT’s Civitatis Award conferred annually “upon a member of the faculty in recognition of dedicated and meritorious service to the university above and beyond the regular expectations of teaching, research, and writing” (2009-10).

Expertise

Modern British and American Literature; the novel; Shakespeare; cultural and literary attitudes toward death.