Donald Pizer

American academic and literary critic (1929–2023)

Donald Pizer (April 5, 1929 – November 7, 2023) was an American academic and literary critic who was regarded as one of the principal authorities on the American naturalism literary movement. He was the Pierce Butler Professor of English Emeritus at Tulane University,^[1] and the author of numerous books on naturalism.^[2] He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1962.^[3]

For University of Georgia professor James Nagel, Pizer "has made enormous contributions to the study of naturalism in the period from 1890 through World War II, with a score or more of books on Jack London, Hamlin Garland, Theodore Dreiser, Frank Norris, John Dos Passos, the 1890s, and twentieth-century fiction."^[4]

In 1971 he presented the paper, "Dreiser 's Fiction: The Editorial Problem" for the A.S.W. Rosenbach Lectures in Bibliography to mark the Theodore Dreiser Centenary.^[5]

After retiring from teaching in 2001, Pizer carried on with his research and writing up until a few years before his death on November 7, 2023, at the age of 94.^[6]

Works

• Pizer, Donald (1964). The Literary Criticism of Frank Norris. New York: Russell & Russell. OCLC 891427579.
• Pizer, Donald (1996). The Theory and Practice of American Literary Naturalism: Selected Essays and Reviews. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 9780809318476. OCLC 256706016.
• Pizer, Donald (2002). The Cambridge Companion to American Realism and Naturalism: Howells to London. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521438766. OCLC 935574928.
• Pizer, Donald (2008). American Naturalism and the Jews: Garland, Norris, Dreiser, Wharton, and Cather. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252033438. OCLC 470680491.
• Pizer, Donald (2014). The Significant Hamlin Garland: A Collection of Essays. New York: Anthem Press. ISBN 9781783083053. OCLC 905564865.

References

1. "Donald Pizer". Tulane University. Retrieved October 23, 2017.
2. Brennan, Stephen C. (Summer 2006). "Donald Pizer and the Study of American Literary Naturalism". Studies in American Naturalism. 1 (1/2): 3–14. JSTOR 23431271.
3. "Donald Pizer". Guggenheim Foundation. Retrieved October 23, 2017.
4. Nagel, James (Summer 2006). "Donald Pizer, American Naturalism, and Stephen Crane". Studies in American Naturalism. 1 (1/2): 30–35.
5. Pizer, Donald, and Robert Henry Elias. 1971. Theodore Dreiser Centenary: A.S.W. Rosenbach Fellowship Lectures in Bibliography. Philadelphia: Library Chronicle, University of Pennsylvania.
6. "Donald Pizer". Dignity Memorial. Retrieved 28 January 2024.