Michael West
Professor of English
412-624-6543
mikewest@pitt.edu
CL 628-H
Michael West holds three degrees from Harvard but is sometimes worth listening to none the less. His teaching and research interests include: the Classical tradition; Renaissance culture; Christian heroism; mock-heroic, satire, and comic forms; puns; stylistics, rhetoric, and linguistically oriented criticism; pedagogy; the short story; the American Renaissance; Irish literature—with expertise on Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Thoreau and Joyce. His book on the American Romantics, Transcendental Wordplay (2000), won the national Christian Gauss Award of $2500 as that year's best work of literary scholarship and criticism on any topic. For undergraduates he has authored "Advice to Students Considering Graduate Work in English," which may be consulted at the website link, www.pitt.edu/~mikewest/adviceintro.html. In addition to counseling students applying to graduate programs in literature, he often works with undergraduates competing in various prize essay competitions throughout the university and nationally.
Teaching
Undergraduate Courses
- Shakespeare
- Renaissance in England
- Formative Masterpieces
- American Literature to 1860
- The Roaring 20's
- The Short Story
- Introduction to Critical Reading
Other Duties & Service
- Advisor for Undergraduates Considering Graduate Work in Literature
- President, Phi Beta Kappa; Co-Chair, Selection Committee
- Faculty Senate University Press committee
