Iser, Wolfgang

Wolfgang Iser is a literary theorist and scholar who has been internationally recognized for his work on reception theory and reader-response criticism.

He was born in Marienberg, Germany on July 22, 1926. Following his high school education, he was drafted into the German army in 1944 and released from a prisoner of war camp in 1945. Iser studied at the University of Leipzig and received his Ph.D. in English philology and literature from the University of Heidelberg in 1950. After teaching at universities in Glasgow, Heidelberg, Würzburg, and Köln, he accepted a position at the newly founded University of Konstanz in 1967, which he maintained until his retirement as professor emeritus in 1991. Iser's writings on reception aesthetics and literary anthropology in the 1970s and 1980s gained him an international reputation in literary theory. He has taught at several institutions in the United States and Canada, accepting a professorship in 1978 at the University of California, Irvine, which he continues to hold as of 2002.

Biography

Wolfgang Iser was born on July 22, 1926, in Marienberg (Saxony), Germany, the son of Paul and Else (Steinbach) Iser. From 1933 to 1944 he attended elementary and high school. He was drafted into the German army in 1944, and released from a prisoner of war camp in 1945. At the age of 19, he enrolled as a student of English, Philosophy, and German at the University of Leipzig, after the "Vorsemester" required for enrollment of students who graduated from high school in the later war years. At the end of his first year he transferred to the University of Tübingen and later to the University of Heidelberg, where he earned his Ph.D. in Anglistik (English philology and literature) in 1950 and joined the first generation of West German postwar graduates. From that point onward Iser's academic career took a straight and very successful course, which in many ways was typical for a young scholar of his generation. After his graduation and a short teaching appointment in Heidelberg, he became an assistant lecturer in 1952 in Glasgow, Scotland, teaching German for the next three years. Just before his departure he married Lore Reichert, who continued to assist Iser in his academic endeavors.

Upon his return to Germany in 1955, Iser was appointed to a position equivalent to an assistant professorship in the English Department of the University of Heidelberg, where he earned his "Habilitation" in 1957 with a work on the aesthetics of Walter Pater. This postdoctoral degree is the final step in the German academic system in becoming a full professor. After three more years of teaching at the University of Heidelberg, Iser was appointed full professor of English at the University of Würzburg in 1960.

After this appointment and another at the University of Köln during the mid-1960s, Iser finally took a position in the Department of Literature at the newly founded University of Konstanz in 1967. Konstanz belonged to the numerous new "reform" campuses created in West Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s in order to provide higher education for the burgeoning postwar generation of students and to fill West Germany's need for professionals in all fields. This rapid growth in the West German educational system was accompanied by deep reforms of traditional structures and teaching methods, and Wolfgang Iser was a significant participant in this reform project. He was a member of the founding council of the University of Bielefeld, another reform campus known at the time for its innovative structures. He became chairman of the Planning Committee for the University of Konstanz in 1971, a crucial position in the shaping of this new school, maintaining this post until his retirement as professor emeritus in 1991. Throughout his career Iser has been in great demand as an academic consultant in Germany, most recently as the chairman of the committee for establishing the "Grossbritannien-Zentrum" (i.e., British Studies Center) at the Humboldt-University in Berlin.

In the 1970s Iser established himself as one of the leading figures in literary theory with such works as Der implizite Leser (1972, English ed. The Implied Reader ) and Der Akt des Lesens (1976, English ed. The Act of Reading ). As a result, he was associated with "reception theory," which was very influential in literary studies during the 1970s; it was especially well-received in the United States, along with "reader-response" criticism. With Hans-Robert Jauss, Iser is considered to be the founding father of the Konstanz School of Reception Aesthetics. It was also during these years that Iser intensified his contacts with the North American academic community, which became over the years his second academic home. In the 1970s Iser held two fellowships and three visiting appointments at U.S. and Canadian institutions, including a visiting appointment in the German Department at the University of California, Irvine in 1976. In 1978 Iser became a faculty member of the Department of English and Comparative Literature at UCI, teaching classes regularly in English literature and literary theory.

Beginning in the mid-1980s Iser's research was oriented more and more toward the issues of literary anthropology. A large research project investigating these issues was established in the Department of Literature at the University of Konstanz, which is still in place. Books such as Prospecting: From Reader Response to Literary Anthropology (1989) and Das Fiktive und das Imaginäre (1991, English ed. The Fictive and the Imaginary ) are representative of this phase in Iser's theoretical research.

Wolfgang Iser pursued an international and highly successful career, with numerous appointments and lectureships in Europe, North America, and Asia. He served on boards of prestigious academic and cultural institutions and has instigated a number of research and editiorial projects such as the series Poetik und Hermeneutik . His international reputation was indicated by his numerous memberships and honorary memberships in academic associations such as the Modern Language Association, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Heidelberg Academy of Arts and Sciences, revealed his international reputation.

Iser died in Konstanz, Germany on January 24, 2007.

Course Chronology

The following chronology of courses taught by Wolfgang Iser at the University of Konstanz and at the University of California, Irvine was assembled with the assistance of Dr. Rolf Eichler and Christa Schellhammer (Konstanz) and Arielle Read (Irvine). Although every effort has been made to list every course taught by Iser at these institutions, this chronology is not definitive. Course titles frequently do not exactly match the titles supplied by Iser for the course materials in Series 2 of this finding aid. At Konstanz, courses are offered during Winter (Oct.-March) and Summer (April-Sept.) semesters. Also at Konstanz, Iser frequently taught Doktorandenkolloquium (doctoral colloquia), for which individual titles were not available for this chronology. At Irvine courses are offered during Fall (Oct.-Dec.), Winter (Jan.-March), and Spring (April-June) quarters.

Courses taught at UCI are explicitly noted; all other courses were taught at Konstanz.