Hager, Alan 1940-

PERSONAL:

Born February 18, 1940, in New York, NY; son of Read (a banker) and Louisa (a journalist and publicity director) Hager; married Laura Stortoni (a poet and professor of Italian), April 19, 1965 (divorced May 8, 1976); married Carol A. Burke (a financial and investment executive), August 6, 1977 (divorced March 8, 1999); children: (second marriage) Stephen Read, Louisa Wilson. Ethnicity: "Caucasian." Education: Harvard University, B.A., 1962; attended Sorbonne, University of Paris, 1962-63; University of California, Berkeley, M.A., 1970, Ph.D., 1978. Politics: "Wishy-washy Democrat." Religion: Episcopalian. Hobbies and other interests: All racket sports, jazz music, drums, classical piano.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Chicago, IL. Office—Department of English, State University of New York College at Cortland, P.O. Box 2000, Cortland, NY 13045. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

University of Oklahoma, Norman, instructor in English, 1977-79; Loyola University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, assistant professor of English, 1979-88; University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, Chicago, visiting lecturer in English, 1989-93; State University of New York College at Cortland, assistant professor, 1993-96, associate professor, 1996-2000, professor of English, 2000—. Dominican College of San Rafael, visiting assistant professor, 1973; lecturer at educational institutions, including University of Chicago, 1989, Purdue University, 1990, Cornell University, 1994, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1994, and Arizona State University, 1996; public speaker on literary topics; guest on media programs. Also jazz and rock drummer. Military service: U.S. Army, Artillery, 1964-68; served in Germany; became lieutenant.

MEMBER:

Modern Language Association of America, Boccaccio Society, Sidney Society, Marlowe Society, Milton Society, Renaissance Society of America, Sixteenth Century Studies Association, French Colonial Historical Society, Mystery Writers of America, Midwest Modern Language Association.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fellow, Newberry Library, 1988-89; other academic honors.

WRITINGS:

FICTION

The Tollbooth, Looking Glass Press (Kansas City, KS), 2004.

Bedtime Confidential, Looking Glass Press (Kansas City, KS), 2006.

NONFICTION

Shakespeare's Political Animal: Schema and Schemata in the Canon, University of Delaware Press (Newark, DE), 1990.

Dazzling Images: The Masks of Sir Philip Sidney, University of Delaware Press (Newark, DE), 1991.

(Editor and contributor) Major Tudor Authors: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1997.

(Editor) Understanding Romeo and Juliet: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historic Documents, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1999.

(Editor) The Age of Milton: Major 17-Century British and American Authors: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2004.

(Editor) Encyclopedia of British Writers: 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries, 2 volumes, Facts on File (New York, NY), 2005.

Contributor to books, including Dennis C. Kay, editor, Sir Philip Sidney: An Anthology of Modern Criticism, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England), 1987. Contributor of articles and reviews to academic journals and literary magazines, including Annals of Scholarship, Canadian Journal of Italian Studies, English Literature History, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Machiavelli Studies, Renaissance Quarterly, Studies in English Literature, and Upstart Crow.

SIDELIGHTS:

Educator and author Alan Hager once commented: "I have been something of a gypsy scholar, having taught jazz appreciation at the Lycée d'Ivry in the suburbs of Paris, 1962; everything from driver safety, and survey, to the infiltration course while serving in the U.S. Army from 1964-68, and writing and literature—mostly Renaissance and modernist—at Berkeley; Dominican College, San Rafael; Oklahoma University; Loyola University; University of Illinois, Chicago; Robert Morris College, and now at the State University of New York at Cortland, where I am a professor of English.

"I have also visited and given lectures at Cornell University, St. Anselm College, and at the Tompkins County Community College Honors Colloquium, but also, as part of personal outreach interests, at high schools such as New Trier in Winnetka, Francis Parker, Chicago Latin, and Lincoln Park in Chicago. With teaching loads always moderately heavy, I think I have had more students than anyone I know.

"Both of my parents were born in the Far East, one an Episcopal missionary's daughter, the other the son of a mining engineer and entrepreneur based in Manila, and met at the Lycée Français in Shanghai, which they both attended," Hagar once noted. "They met again at a dinner party in New York designed to match that couple of Caucasians with a peculiar common origin. From both sides of my family I think I have inherited an interest in reading and writing, in racquet sports from table tennis to badminton and paolta, but mainly tennis and squash. Jazz and Baroque music have also been passions, as well as boating from sweep oar to sailing to water-skiing.

"Some of my scholarly writing, such as Understanding Romeo and Juliet: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources and Historic Documents, and my work for encyclopedias, have been aimed at large audiences, from high school at least on. Also my fiction would want universal appeal. I believe one learns how to write well only with models. In criticism, I look to the style if not the content of C.S. Lewis and Stephen Greenblatt; for my fiction, Raymond Chandler and J.D. Salinger and my friends, Mike Mewshaw and Pat Conroy. For content, my idol is Richard Wilbur.

"Authors write, I feel, out of a desire to convert readers to life and that makes them priestly in the largest sense. I teach, I hope, ideas options, attitudes, and curiosity. I write from full titles and cryptic notes on the backs of an abundance of unused deposit slips in my checkbooks. I won't lose those too easily. I think our greatest natural resource is the education of our inhabitants and it makes me sad if and when American grade schools, high schools, colleges, and universities, as great as they are, do not promote creativity."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 1, 1997, review of Major Tudor Authors: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook p. 354; August, 2004, Mary Ellen Quinn, review of The Age of Milton: An Encyclopedia of Major 17th-Century British and American Authors, p. 1972; July, 2005, Craig Bunch, review of Encyclopedia of British Writers: 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries, p. 1938.

Genre, Volume XXV, number 1, p. 220.

Journal of English and Germanic Philology, April, 1993, Arthur F. Kinney, review of Dazzling Images: The Masks of Sir Philip Sidney, p. 226.

Library Journal, September 1, 2004, Lee Ehlers, review of The Age of Milton, p. 186; April 15, 2005, Mirela Roncevic, review of Encyclopedia of British Writers, p. 126.

Modern Philology, Richard C. McCoy, review of Dazzling Images: The Masks of Sir Philip Sidney, p. 351.

Notes and Queries, March, 1992.

Review of English Studies, February, 1993, review of Shakespeare's Political Animal: Schema and Schemata in the Canon, pp. 103-104.

School Library Journal, March, 2000, Sally Margolis, review of Understanding Romeo and Juliet: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents, p. 253; June, 2005, Pat Bender, review of Encyclopedia of British Writers: 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries, p. 90.

Times Literary Supplement, August 13, 2004, Kevin de Ornellas, review of The Age of Milton, p. 29.