Donald Pizer

Pizer was the only child of Morris Pizer, a union official, and Helen (Rosenfeld) Pizer, a fur worker. He was born in New York City and raised in Brooklyn until 1947 when, after graduating from high school, he and his mother moved to Los Angeles. He received his B.A. (1951), M.A. (1952), and Ph. D. (1955), all from U.C.L.A., and served in the US Army from 1955 to 1957. He then joined the English Department at Newcomb College, Tulane University, as an assistant professor. In 1966, he married Carol Hart. He is survived by her, their three daughters (Karin, Ann, and Margaret), and four grandchildren.

Pizer concentrated for much of his career on late 19th and early 20th century American naturalism, a literary movement that included such figures as Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser, and John Dos Passos. He published many articles and over 40 books, both critical studies and editions, devoted to these writers individually and to the movement as a whole. His work played a leading role in shifting critical emphasis in interpreting America naturalism from its conventionally held position as a weak offshoot of French naturalism to being seen as a distinctly American phenomenon, with its roots in American experience and values. He was widely regarded as the nation’s principal scholar of the movement and its writers.

Pizer was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1962; his many other awards include senior fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies and the National Endowment for the Humanities and three Fulbright lectureships at European universities. He was a member of the editorial boards of many professional journals and often was a guest lecturer at American and European universities, including Cambridge, Heidelberg, and Leiden. At Tulane, he directed the Ph.D. dissertations of over 30 graduate students and in 1970 was appointed to the endowed Pierce Butler chair in English. He retired from teaching at Tulane in 2001 but continued his research and writing for many years.

Pizer’s army service included a year living in London. He developed a taste for English life and later returned to the area near Hampstead Heath many times for summers with his family and when on sabbatical leave. He was equally fond of his adopted home of New Orleans, where he lived for over 65 years.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.LeitzEaganFuneralHome.com for the family.