Dorothee Metlitzki

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Dorothee Metlitzki (July 27, 1914 - April 14, 2001) was an author and professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley and, for most of her career, at Yale University. She was a specialist in medieval English literature and history, Arabic literature and language and of the author Herman Melville.

In addition she was a Zionist who played an important role in the foundation of the modern State of Israel.


Contents

[edit] Academic Life

Dorothee Metlitzki received a BA and two MA degrees from the University of London, one in medieval English and one in classical Arabic. After helping found Hebrew University in Jerusalem's department of English she moved to the US to attend Yale University, graduating with a PhD in 1954.[1]

She then took a position at the University of California, Berkeley's English department as lecturer and later, in 1964, as an associate professor, the department's second woman to ever be tenured. This was followed, in 1966, by teaching for 10 years at Yale University and also becoming the second woman to ever be tenured by that University's department of English as well.[2]

She published several academic books dealing with her interests including Celestial Origin of Elpheta and Algarsyf in Chaucer's "Squire's Tale," Melville's "Orienda" and The Matter of Araby in Medieval England.

[edit] Personal Life

Dorothee Metlitzki was born in 1914 in the city of Königsberg (then in East Prussia).[3]

Her father was imprisoned during the Russian Revolution and her mother moved the rest of the family to Lithuania, where her father rejoined them after his stay in prison.[4]

She married Paul Kraus in 1943. He was then an Arabist working at the University of Cairo but died shortly after they were married. She remarried Egyptologist Bernhard Grdseloff and the couple had a daughter, Ruth. Grdseloff died in Cairo in 1950.[5]

[edit] Work in Israel

Having left Lithuania for London following outbreaks of anti-semitism, Metlitzki became an active Zionist in England, working with fellow Zionists Eban, Golda Meir and Moshe Sharet on the development of the State of Israel. She moved to Jerusalem after World War II and spent 15 years there founding the English department at Hebrew University.[6]

During the reign of Golda Meir in Israel, Metlitzki worked in the government there as a press officer for the Foreign Ministry and secretary for the affairs of Arab women in the Israeli Federation of Labor.[7]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Lawler, Traugott. “Dorothee Metlitzki: Pioneering academic passionate about English and Arab cultures.” The Guardian, 30 April 2001. <http://education.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,480718,00.html>.
  2. ^ Lawler, Traugott. “Dorothee Metlitzki: Pioneering academic passionate about English and Arab cultures.” The Guardian, 30 April 2001. <http://education.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,480718,00.html>.
  3. ^ “Dorothee Metlitzki.” The Independent, 7 May 2001. <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/dorothee-metlitzki-729087.html>.
  4. ^ Lawler, Traugott. “Dorothee Metlitzki: Pioneering academic passionate about English and Arab cultures.” The Guardian, 30 April 2001. <http://education.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,480718,00.html>.
  5. ^ Obituary. “Dorothee Metlitzki dies; scholar played role in Israel's founding.” Yale Bulletin & Calendar, 27 April 2001. <http://www.yale.edu/opa/v29.n28/story16.html>.
  6. ^ Obituary. “Dorothee Metlitzki dies; scholar played role in Israel's founding.” Yale Bulletin & Calendar, 27 April 2001. <http://www.yale.edu/opa/v29.n28/story16.html>.
  7. ^ Goldberg, Cary. “Dorothee Metlitzki, 86, Scholar Of Medievalism and Melville.” The New York Times, 9 May 2001. <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9903E6D9143BF93AA35756C0A9679C8B63>.