I study poetry. I have written about avant-garde American poetry (Charles Olson: The Scholar’s Art [1978]) and more generally about U.S. poetry since 1945 (American Poetry and Culture, 1945-1980 [1985] and Poetry, Politics, Intellectuals [1996]). I have an interest in the culture of intellectuals generally, but especially that of literary intellectuals (Literary Intellectuals and the Dissolution of the State [1996]), and a related interest in the sociology of literature, particularly in the institutions that mediate its production and reception (Canons [1984]). My theoretical interests derive from concern about the relations between political history and literary culture and focus on particular critical problems, such as evaluation (Politics and Poetic Value [1987]).

I teach courses in German poetry (“Rainer Maria Rilke,” “Paul Celan and Emily Dickinson”) and in theories of modernity (“Bloch, Benjamin, Bataille,” “Benjamin and Simmel”) in the Comparative Literature Department, and in poetics (“Elements of Poetry and Poetics”) and U. S. poetry of the 20th century in the English Department. I am beginning to explore the relations between poetry and song and expect to teach courses in song lyrics as a genre of popular poetry. I also direct an ongoing graduate workshop in Poetry and Poetics and participate in the Program in Poetry and Poetics.

T.S. Eliot Courtesy of the Modern Poetry Photographs Collection, Special Collections, University of Chicago

I am writing two books now: one, a literary critical examination of African American poetry; the other, a short book in defense of lyric poetry. I have encouraged scholarly work on the historical contexts of modernist writing, and will continue to work with students interested in American and European modernism. But my courses are now concentrating less in historical fields than in general problems in poetics. I taught a course in winter 2003 about the ways in which certain 20th century poets, like Montale and Milosz, have found international audiences, while others, like Enzensberger, have been less well served by translation. I work most closely with two groups of students: those interested in poetry and those concentrating on comparative or historical studies of American modernism and postwar writing.

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Selected Publications:

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• Charles Olson: The Scholar’s Art. Harvard University Press, 1978.
• Canons. University of Chicago Press, 1984. Editor.
• American Poetry and Culture, 1945-1980. Harvard University Press, 1985.
• Politics and Poetic Value. University of Chicago Press, 1987. Editor.
• Poetry, Politics, and Intellectuals: A History of American Poetry, 1945-1995, which, along with Jerry Graff's history of American criticism during this period, has been published as volume eight of the new Cambridge History of American Literature.
• Literary Intellectuals and the Dissolution of the State: Professionalism and Conformity in the GDR, Ed. Robert von Hallberg; Translated by Kenneth J. Northcott. University of Chicago Press, 1996.

T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Courtesy of the Poetry Magazine Collection, Special Collections, University of Chicago

Contact Information: Department of English The University of Chicago 1115 East 58th Street Chicago, IL 60637 Office: Wieboldt 412 Phone: (773) 702-8539 Fax: (773) 702-2495 von6@uchicago.edu