Joel Dorius

Raymond Joel Dorius (born January 4, 1919 Salt Lake City , † February 14, 2006 San Francisco ) was an American professor of literature at Yale University , Smith College , San Francisco State University and the University of Hamburg .

Life

Joel Dorius studied after graduating from West High School , English and Literature at the University of Utah , where he received his bachelor's degree in 1939. After moving to Harvard University , where he received his doctorate in 1949, Dorius was initially employed in 1949 at Yale University and in 1958 accepted a position at Smith College .

Dorius became known when he was dismissed from Smith College, where he was a professor, in 1960 after being arrested for possession of homosexual pornography . With him, Professors Newton Arvin and Edward Spofford were dismissed for the same reason .

After his release from Smith College, Dorius initially found no job as a university lecturer in the United States and eventually accepted a position as a professor at the University of Hamburg . In 1964, Dorius got a job as a professor at San Francisco State University .

In 2002, Smith College admitted the unjustified resignation of the three professors, established its own lecture series, set up the $ 100,000 Dorius / Spofford Foundation for work on civil rights and freedom of expression, and wrote the annual Newton-Arvin Prize for American Studies worth $ 500.

The story of the professors' dismissal is told in the book The Scarlet Professor - Newton Arvin: A Literary Life Shattered by Scandal by Barry Werth .

In 2004 Dorius published his own memoir under the title My Four Lives . In 2006 he died of leukemia.

Fonts

• Shakespeare's "King Henry IV, Part 1": A Collection of Critical Essays , Prentice Hall 1971, ISBN 0-13-387035-9
• Discussions of Shakespeare's Histories , DC Heath 1964, ISBN 0-669-22004-3

literature

• Barry Werth: The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin: A Literary Life Shattered by Scandal , Nan A Talese 2001, ISBN 0-385-49468-8

Individual evidence

1. ↑ affirmation.org Joel Dorius ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ Article in the Washington Post

Web links

• New York Times Obituary
• www.affirmation.org Reminder page (PDF file; 156 kB)
• PBS documentary, "The Great Pink Scare"