John Felstiner


John Felstiner, Professor Emeritus of English at Stanford University, was an American literary critic, translator, and poet. His interests included poetry in various languages, environmental and ecologic poems, literary translation, Vietnam era poetry and Holocaust studies.

Biography

Felstiner was born in Mount Vernon, New York and grew up in New York and New England. He graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy, Harvard College, A.B., 1958, and Harvard University, Ph.D., 1965.
From 1958 to 1961, he served on the USS Forrestal, in the Mediterranean. Felstiner came to Stanford University in 1965 and was a professor of English at Stanford until his retirement in 2009. While at Stanford, he was three times a fellow at Stanford Humanities Center; a Fulbright professor at University of Chile ; visiting professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; and visiting professor of Comparative Literature and English at Yale University.
His collection of Paul Celan’s manuscripts, letters, and widespread context, along with Felstiner’s own translation archive, are housed at the Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington.
John and his wife, the writer, historian and professor Mary Lowenthal Felstiner, have two children: Sarah and Alek, and also two grandchildren.

Selected works