Alan M. Wald, Ph.D., H. Chandler Davis Collegiate Professor of English and American Culture, professor of English language and literature, and professor of American culture in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, will retire from active faculty status on May 31, 2014.

Professor Wald received his B.A. degree from Antioch College in 1969, and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley in 1971 and 1974, respectively. He joined the University of Michigan faculty as assistant professor in 1975, and was promoted to associate professor in 1981, and professor in 1986. He was named the H. Chandler Davis Collegiate Professor of English and American Culture in 2007.

Professor Wald examined the varied currents of U.S. leftwing politics and radical esthetics, captured the specificity of writers' lives both renowned and rediscovered by his own investigations, and widened the corpus of U.S. literature to include writers across all lines of race, gender, class, and sexuality. He authored six monographs, two books of collected essays, an edited book series of reissued radical novels, and over a hundred additional book chapters, articles, and reviews. His book American Night: The Literary Left in the Era of the Cold War (2012) completed a trilogy that recast the interpretation of writers associated with the Communist movement in the United States. Professor Wald served as director of the Program in American Culture (2000-03) and played an instrumental role in establishing the department as a leader in multicultural scholarship. Throughout his career, he worked to assure racial equality in all aspects of University life and to preserve academic freedom. Professor Wald received numerous honors for his work including an American Council of Learned Societies Research Fellowship (1983-84), a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (1999-2000), a National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowship (2011-12), and the American Studies Association's Mary C. Turpie Prize (2012).

The Regents now salute this distinguished teacher and researcher by naming Alan M. Wald professor emeritus of English language and literature and professor emeritus of American culture.