English Department's Leff selected for Norris Chair in the Humanities (02-17-01)

Dr. Leonard J. Leff, OSU professor of English, was recently selected to hold the Norris Chair in the Humanities at OSU. Leff, an internationally recognized expert in film studies, is the first OSU faculty member to be honored with the title. The new professorship is a three-year, renewable appointment. Leff, who joined the OSU faculty in 1979, teaches a variety of film-related classes at OSU, and he does extensive research that has resulted in five books and numerous articles, which have appeared in a variety of publications.

His most recent book is Hemingway and His Conspirators: Hollywood, Scribners, and the Making of American Celebrity Culture. One of his earlier books, Hitchcock and Selznick: The Rich and Strange Relationship of Alfred Hitchcock and David O. Selznick in Hollywood, won the Oklahoma Book Award and the prestigious British Film Institute Award. Another of his books, The Dame in the Kimono: Hollywood, Censorship, and the Production Code from the 1920s to the 1960s, was widely acclaimed. Both Dame in the Kimono and Hemingway and His Conspirators were New York Times Notable Books of the Year.

In recent years, Leff has served as a consultant for a Public Broadcasting Corporation documentary on Hitchcock and delivered keynote addresses at a Hemingway Centenary Conference and the International Hitchcock Centenary Conference in New York. He also recently had an essay on Gone with the Wind published in Atlantic Monthly. 

He's also received many grants and awards, including a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellowship and a NEH summer stipend.

English Department
College of Arts & Sciences
Oklahoma State University
205 Morrill Hall
Stillwater, OK 74078
Phone: 405-744-9474
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