Prof. Robert Alter
Professor in the Graduate School and Emeritus Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature
University of California at Berkeley

Robert Alter has taught at the University of California at Berkeley since 1967, and is currently Professor of the Graduate School and Emeritus Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature.  His interests have ranged from the European and American novel to modern Hebrew literature and literary aspects of the Hebrew Bible.  He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including an award for lifetime contribution to American literature from the Los Angeles Times, an award for lifetime achievement from the American Association of Learned Societies, and a lifetime achievement award from the Conference on Christianity and Literature.  In 2019 he was given an award for literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  He holds honorary degrees from Yale, Northwestern, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Haifa, and three other institutions.  Students he has trained occupy positions at more than a dozen American universities as well as at the major universities of Israel.

 

Selected Publications

Partial Magic: The Novel as a Self-conscious Genre (1975)

The Art of Biblical Narrative (1981)

Necessary Angels: Kafka, Benjamin, and Modernity (1993)

The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary (2018)