Alfred Kern
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August 8, 1924
Alfred Kern | |
|---|---|
| Born | Alfred Cohen August 8, 1924 |
| Died | June 2, 2009 |
| Occupations | Novelist and professor |
| Known for | Professor of English at Allegheny College |
Alfred Kern (born Alfred Cohen, August 8, 1924 – June 2, 2009) was an American novelist and professor.
Born in Alliance, Ohio, he served in the U.S. Army Air Forces from 1942 to 1946 during World War II. He legally changed his name to Alfred Kern in 1946.
Kern graduated from Allegheny College in 1948 and New York University in 1954.
Academic career
He served as the Frederick F. Seely Professor of English at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, from the 1950s until his retirement in the mid-1980s.
During the 1979–1980 academic year, Kern was the distinguished visiting professor of English at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, an academic experience which inspired several articles relating the arts to the military. These were published in USAF journals.[1]
During the 1980s, he experimented with writing poetry, using computers with an Allegheny College colleague, James Sheridan. According to a family member, he lived in Pittsburgh for roughly ten years after retiring from Allegheny College (from approximately 1987 to 1996), where he is still remembered.[2]
Death
He died on June 2, 2009, in Wilmington, North Carolina.[1]
Books
- The Width of Waters, novel (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959).
- Made in U.S.A., novel (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966).
- The Trial of Martin Ross, novel (New York: W.W. Norton, 1971).
