George Steiner
(Francis)
George Steiner, a prominent
literary critic, was born in
Paris,
France, on
April 23,
1929.
Steiner (who has not used the name Francis since his undergraduate days) is the son of Dr Frederick George and Mrs Else Steiner; he was educated first at the
Lycée in Paris and then at the French Lycée in
New York after the family moved to America in
1940.
In
1955 he married Zara Shakow, to whom he had been introduced by friends in 1952. They have one son (
David, Dean of the School of Education at
Hunter College) and one daughter (
Deborah, Professor of Classics at
Columbia).
He gained his BA from the
University of Chicago, an MA from
Harvard and a DPhil from
Oxford (Balliol College, of which he became an Honorary Fellow in
1995). Between
1953 and
1955 Steiner taught at
Williams College in Massachusetts.
Steiner had been active on undergraduate publications while at University and in 1952 he joined the staff of The Economist, in London, (1952-56). He returned to America in 1956 to attend the
Institute for Advanced Study,
Princeton University, (1956-58) where he also lectured (1959-60). He held a Fulbright professorship in Innsbruck (1958-59), and in 1961 became a Founding Fellow of Churchill College,
Cambridge, to which he was elected an Extraordinary Fellow in 1969. In 1974, after several years as a freelance writer and occasional lecturer, he accepted the post of Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the
University of Geneva, which he held until 1994, becoming Professor Emeritus on his retirement. He has since held the positions of Weidenfeld Professor of Comparative Literature and Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford, (1994-95) and Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard (2001-02).
His field is
comparative literature. His work as a critic has tended toward exploring, often with great insight, cultural and philosophical issues of enduring interest, in contrast to what some regard as the nihilistic or narrowly political directions taken by much contemporary literary criticism. His work has heavily influenced intellectual discourse on
popular culture and scholarly
popular culture studies.
He is a regular contributor of reviews and articles to journals and newspapers including the New Yorker, the
Times Literary Supplement and
The Guardian.
Steiner's career has been graced by many honours including:
*A Guggenheim Fellowship, 1971-72
*An Honorary Membership of the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences, 1989.
*Hon. D.Litt from the following Universities: East Anglia, 1976; Louvain, 1980;
Mount Holyoke College, USA, 1983; Bristol, 1989; Glasgow, 1990; Liège, 1990; Ulster, 1993; Durham, 1995; Queen Mary, University of London, 2006.
*Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur (1984).
*The
Truman Capote Lifetime Achievement Award by
Stanford University (1998)
*Fellowship of the
British Academy.
He has also won numerous awards for his fiction and poetry.
A list of his published works is to be found
here*
ContemporaryWriters.com*
BrainyQuote.com*The Papers of George Steiner prepared by Averil Condren for Churchill Archives Centre in 2001.
*Steiner's entry in
Who's Who 1897-1996 (A and C Black),
*The Harvard Gazette (27.09.01)
*His writings and from the newspapers.
