UC San Diego

Office of the Dean
Division of Arts and Humanities
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive # 0406
La Jolla, CA 92093-0406

tel: (858) 534-6270
fax: (858) 534-0091
dean-ah@ucsd.edu

Seth Lerer
Distinguished Professor of Literature
Dean, Arts and Humanities
University of California, San Diego

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Click here for Lerer news items and events

Seth Lerer was appointed Distinguished Professor of Literature and Dean of Arts and Humanities in January 2009. Previously, he was a member of the Stanford University faculty where he had a joint professorial appointment in English and Comparative Literature and was the Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities.

He received a B.A. from Wesleyan University in 1976, a B.A. from Oxford University in 1978, an M.A. from Oxford University in 1978, and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1981. His research and teaching interests include medieval and Renaissance studies, comparative philology, the history of scholarship, and children's literature. In 1993, he received the Hoagland Prize for Undergraduate Teaching at Stanford, and in 2003 he received a Dean's Award for Graduate Teaching. He has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council of Learned Societies. In 1996, he was the Hurst Visiting Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, in 2002 he was the Helen Cam Visiting Scholar in Medieval Studies at Cambridge University, and in 2007-08 he was the Fletcher Jones Distinguished Fellow at the Huntington Library. He has published over one hundred articles and reviews and is the author of seven books: Boethius and Dialogue (Princeton, 1985); Literacy and Power in Anglo-Saxon Literature (Nebraska, 1991); Chaucer and His Readers (Princeton, 1993; awarded the Beatrice White Prize of the English Association of Great Britain); Courtly Letters in the Age of Henry VIII (Cambridge, 1997); and Error and the Academic Self: The Scholarly Imagination, Medieval to Modern (Columbia, 2002) (awarded the 2005 Harry Levin Prize of the American Comparative Literature Association); Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language (Columbia, 2007); and Children's Literature: A Reader's History (Chicago, 2008). In addition to these books, he has edited four collections of essays: Literary History and the Challenge of Philology (Stanford, 1996), Reading from the Margins (The Huntington Library, 1996), The Yale Companion to Chaucer (Yale, 2006), and (with Leah Price) a special issue of PMLA on "The History of the Book and the Idea of Literature" (January 2006).

Lerer PDF CV

Links to interviews, events, and news items about Dean Lerer

(left) MMW lecture on February 29, 2012; (top) Dean Lerer with Provost Alan Houston and MMW moderator Steven Cassedy; (bottom) Books by Dean Lerer.

•"To Be Human: The Verve: How We Became Modern" with Seth Lerer on UCSD TV and slated to air May 21st. (5.14.12)
•Dean Lerer's classroom demo on YouTube. (5.10.12)
•Dean Lerer talk on "Harry Potter and the Magic of Books." (4.23.12) Update: Rancho Santa Fe Review (5.3.12)
•Dean Seth Lerer as keynote speaker at 2012 Revelle Honors Banquet on May 3rd. (4.11.12)
•Dean Lerer in the blogosphere. (4.3.12)
•Smithsonian Seminar featuring Dean Lerer on March 17, 2012. (2.15.12)
•MMW Lecture featuring Dean Lerer. (2.13.12)
•Book review in San Francisco Chronicle. (2.13.12)
•Interview with Dean Lerer in Ragazine. (1.23.12)
•Dean Lerer in the blogosphere. (12.8.11)
•Marshall Institute blog on Kindle, Chaucer, and the "Age of Excitement." (8.30.11)
•Dean Seth Lerer mentioned in City Journal article. (8.29.11)
•Book review in San Francisco Chronicle written by Dean Seth Lerer. (8.22.11)
•Talk at Geisel library entitled "Tales from the Mothership" on May 11th. (5.2.11)
•Jezebel article entitled "Dr. Who's Sci-Fi Girl Power" quotes Dean Lerer. (4.22.11)
•San Francisco Chronicle review of "The Use and Abuse of Literature" written by Dean Seth Lerer. (3.28.11)
•KPBS' These Days features cellist Charles Curtis and Dean Seth Lerer. They discuss this Monday's Camera Lucida performance of "A Soldier's Tale." (3.10.11)
•Book review in San Francisco Chronicle written by Dean Seth Lerer. (2.1.11)
•Dean Seth Lerer recommends his top 10 list of must-have children's books.(12.10.10)
•UCTV broadcast about UCSD's 50th anniversary. (11.2.10)
•San Francisco Chronicle book review written by Dean Seth Lerer. (10.04.10)
•Interview about "Children's Literature" on Rorotoko.com. (5.21.10)
•Recipient of the 2010 Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism for "Children's Literature." (3.30.10)
•Slate.com essay by Dean Seth Lerer entitled "What Lewis Carroll Taught Us." (3.5.10)
•YouTube video of Sept 2009 Sendak lecture at CJMSF. (12.14.09)
•Green Faculty Club guest speaker on November 18, 2009.
•Bronowski Art & Science Forum guest speaker on November 5, 2009.
•Featured in LA Times article about Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are". (10.22.09)
•Dinner in the Library with Lerer as guest speaker, September 17, 2009.
•Oakland Tribune article about Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are". (9.9.09)
•"Ten Questions" from La Jolla Light. (8.26.09)
•Op-ed piece in The Jewish Week mentions Willows. (8.26.09)
•"From Homer to Harry Potter" in The Vancouver Sun. (8.7.09)
•Review of Willows in New York Times. (7.10.09)
•Review of Willows in London Times Literary Supplement. (6.24.09)
•Review of Willows in Washington Post. (6.17.09)
•Harvard University Press podcast about Willlows. (6.12.09)
•Book signing at Warwick's in La Jolla. (6.3.09)
•Review of Willows in Star Tribune. (5.18.09)
•Review of Willows in Forbes. (5.8.09)
•The Spanish translation of Lerer's "Children's Literature" now available. (5.6.09)
•Spanish language article entitled ¿Si tú lees, ellos leen? (If you read, would they read?) (5.5.09)
•Dean Lerer writes San Francisco Chronicle book review of Finding Oz. (5.1.09)
•Review of Wind in the Willows from Newsweek. (4.30.09)
•Book Buzz from USA Today. (4.30.09)
•Dean Seth Lerer's book "Children's Literature: A Reader's History from Aesop to Harry Potter" wins the National Book Critics Circle award for criticism. The honor was bestowed at a ceremony in New York City. Click here for a video interview with Dean Lerer. (3.16.09)
•Seth Lerer - 'cartographer' of children's literature. (3.9.09)
•"Ten Questions" from the Del Mar Times. (2.20.09)
•DAH Link Newsletter - Meet the Dean edition. (2.17.09)
•"Children's Literature" named a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle award. (1.26.09)
•San Diego Union Tribune Q & A. (9.4.08)
•KPBS' These Days. (8.20.08)
•On NPR - "From Aesop to Harry Potter." (7.2.08)
•UCSD News item - Lerer named Dean of DAH. (6.20.08)