Paul Lauter

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Paul Lauter
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Born1932
NationalityAmerican
OccupationLiterary scholar, historian, activist
EmployerTrinity College
Known forGeneral editor of The Heath Anthology of American Literature
TitleAllan K. and Gwendolyn Miles Smith Professor of Literature, Emeritus

Paul Lauter (born 1932) is an American literary scholar, historian, and activist. He is the Allan K. and Gwendolyn Miles Smith Professor of Literature, Emeritus, at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.[1]

A pivotal figure in the "culture wars" of the late 20th century, Lauter is best known as the general editor of The Heath Anthology of American Literature, a revolutionary text that fundamentally reshaped the American literary canon by incorporating the works of women, African Americans, Native Americans, and other marginalized groups.[2]

Lauter’s career is distinguished by his dual commitment to high-level scholarship and grassroots activism. A leader in the New Left, he worked on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi, organized against the Vietnam War alongside Noam Chomsky and Dr. Benjamin Spock, and co-founded The Feminist Press.

Early life and education

Paul Lauter was born in 1932 in New York City. He graduated from the Bronx High School of Science before attending New York University, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts. He received a Master of Arts from the School of Letters at Indiana University and completed his Ph.D. in English Literature at Yale University in 1958.

Activism and "The Movement" (1960s–1970s)

Paul Lauter describes his life as being defined by "The Movement"—the converging struggles for civil rights, peace, and women's liberation during the 1960s and 70s.[3] His academic work is deeply rooted in these experiences, which challenged the "illegitimate authority" of established institutions, including the university.

Civil rights and Freedom Schools

In 1964 and 1965[4], Lauter traveled to Mississippi to work in the Freedom Schools[5], an alternative education initiative organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) during Freedom Summer (1964). Working in the segregated South, Lauter taught African American history and literature to Black students who had been denied adequate education by the state. This experience of "education for insurgency" profoundly influenced his later pedagogical theories.

In 1967, he applied these principles as the director of the Adams-Morgan Community School project in Washington, D.C., the first community-controlled school in the United States.[6]

Anti-War leadership and Resist

Lauter was a central figure in the anti-Vietnam War movement. In the mid-1960s, he served as a Peace Education Secretary and Director of Peace Studies for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). He was a founding member and key organizer of Resist, an organization formed in 1967 to support draft resistance. In this capacity, he worked closely with prominent intellectuals and activists, including Noam Chomsky, Dr. Benjamin Spock, and novelist Mitchell Goodman.[7]

Lauter helped circulate the famous manifesto, "A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority," which led to the federal indictment of the "Boston Five" (including Spock and Goodman) for conspiracy to aid draft evasion. Later, Lauter served as the executive director of the U.S. Servicemen's Fund (USSF), an organization that established "GI coffeehouses" near military bases to provide off-duty soldiers with a space to organize and access anti-war literature. The USSF also sponsored the F.T.A. Show (often interpreted as "Free The Army" or "F*** The Army"), an anti-war variety show starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland.

The Feminist Press

In 1970, Lauter and his then-partner, Florence Howe, co-founded The Feminist Press. At a time when women writers were largely absent from university syllabi, the Press sought to "reconstruct" the literary landscape by recovering lost or out-of-print works by women.[8] Lauter served as the organization's treasurer and editor for fourteen years, playing a crucial operational role in the burgeoning field of Women's Studies.

Academic Career and The Canon Wars

Lauter’s academic work challenged the New Critical tradition, which prioritized a narrow list of mostly white, male authors (such as Hawthorne, Melville, and Faulkner) and emphasized "close reading" over historical context.

Reconstructing American Literature

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Lauter directed the Reconstructing American Literature (RAL) project, supported by the Federal Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education at The Feminist Press. The project gathered syllabi and curriculum ideas from scholars across the country who were attempting to teach a more inclusive version of American history and culture.[9] This work culminated in the publication of Reconstructing American Literature (1983).[10]

The Heath Anthology of American Literature

The RAL project laid the groundwork for Lauter’s magnum opus, The Heath Anthology of American Literature, first published in 1989.[11]

As General Editor, Lauter assembled an editorial board that included scholars of African American, Asian American, Latino, and Native American studies, with an equal number of male and female editors.[12] The anthology was radical in its inclusion of slave narratives, oral traditions, songs, and working-class literature, treating them as essential components of American literary history rather than sociological footnotes.[13]

Despite initial resistance from conservative critics who viewed it as "politically correct" engineering, the Heath Anthology became a standard text in universities worldwide and forced competing anthologies (such as the Norton Anthology) to significantly broaden their selections.

Institutional roles

Lauter joined the faculty of Trinity College in 1988, where he served as Chair of the English Department and Director of the Graduate American Studies program until his retirement. Prior to Trinity, he taught at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Smith College, and the State University of New York (SUNY) at Old Westbury. He served as President of the American Studies Association (ASA) (1999–2000), where he advocated for a more global and comparative approach to American Studies.

Selected bibliography

Authored Works

  • Our Sixties: An Activist's History (University of Rochester Press, 2020) – A memoir blending autobiography with a social history of the era.
  • From Walden Pond to Jurassic Park: Activism, Culture, and American Studies (Duke University Press, 2001) – Essays on the role of the public intellectual and the changing nature of higher education.
  • Canons and Contexts (Oxford University Press, 1991)[14] – A critical study of how literary canons are formed, maintained, and dismantled.
  • The Conspiracy of the Young (World Publishing Co., 1970) – Co-authored with Florence Howe; an analysis of the student movements of the 1960s.
  • Theories of Comedy (Anchor Books, 1964) – An early critical anthology and study of the genre.

Edited volumes & anthologies

  • The Politics of Literature: An Anti Text in Criticism. (Pantheon, 1972). Co-edited with Louis Kampf. Dissenting essays on the teaching of English.
  • The Heath Anthology of American Literature (General Editor). Multiple editions from 1989 to present. (Houghton Mifflin / Cengage).
  • Literature, Class, and Culture (Longman, 2001). Co-edited with Ann Fitzgerald.
  • A Companion to American Literature and Culture (Blackwell, 2010). Editor.
  • Reconstructing American Literature: Courses, Syllabi, Issues (The Feminist Press, 1983). Editor.

Awards and honors

Lauter’s contributions have been recognized with the highest honors in his field:

  • 2018: Francis Andrew March Award (which honors exceptional service to the profession of English): Association of Departments of English (Modern Language Association).[15]
  • 2018: Lifetime Achievement Award: Working-Class Studies Association.
  • 2006: The Carl Bode – Norman Holmes Pearson Prize for lifetime achievement from the American Studies Association (ASA).[16]
  • 2001: The Jay B. Hubbell Medal for lifetime achievement in American Literary Study from the Modern Language Association (MLA).[17]
  • 1990: The Award for Distinguished Contributions to Ethnic Studies from The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS).
  • Fulbright Awards: Senior Specialist award for teaching in Graz, Austria (2004) and Yasnaya Polyana, Russia (2003).

Personal life

Lauter was a longtime partner of Florence Howe, a pioneer in women’s studies, with whom he collaborated on numerous political and educational projects, including The Feminist Press and the Freedom Schools. He later married Ann Fitzgerald, another activist in women’s studies, and currently resides in New Jersey with Doris Friedensohn, an innovator in American studies. He has two sons, Daniel Lauter, a musician and educator, and David Lauter, a journalist.

References

  1. ↑ Trinity College Faculty Profile: Paul Lauter
  2. ↑ Scott McLemee, "A Star of American Studies (or Is That 'Un-American Studies'?)," Chronicle of Higher Education, volume 47, issue 40, June 15, 2001, pages A12-A13.
  3. ↑ Lauter, Paul. Our Sixties: An Activist's History. University of Rochester Press, 2020.
  4. ↑ Paul Lauter and Florence Howe, "Letter from Mississippi, 1965," https://www.paul-lauter.com/books. Accessed 12/29/2025.
  5. ↑ Freedom Schools - SNCC Digital Gateway. https://snccdigital.org/inside-sncc/culture-education/freedom-schools. Accessed 12/29/2025.
  6. ↑ Paul Lauter, "The Short, Happy Life of the Adams-Morgan Community School Project," Harvard Educational Review, 38 (2), July 1968, 235-262; DOI: https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.38.2.rj1j1741481578j0. Accessed 12/29/2025
  7. ↑ Barsky, Robert. Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent. MIT Press.
  8. ↑ The Feminist Press. "History of the Press."
  9. ↑ Hank Lazer, "Anthologies, Poetry, and Postmodernism," Contemporary Literature, volume 36, issue 2, Summer 1995, pages 362-383.
  10. ↑ Laurie Grobman, "The Value and Valuable Work of Multi-Ethnic Literature," MELUS, vol 29, Fall-Winter, 2004, issue 3-4, pages 81-90.
  11. ↑ Mike Hill. "Editing the Anthology: An Interview with Paul Lauter," The Minnesota Review, volume 48-49, Spring-Fall, 1997 pages 169-181.
  12. ↑ Larry Gordon, "COLUMN ONE: Anthology Rattles Tradition," Los Angeles Times, Aug. 27, 1990, p. 1.
  13. ↑ Peter Carafiol, "Changing the World: The Rhetoric of Revisionism," ADE Bulletin, volume 101, Spring, 1992, pages 61-68.
  14. ↑ Michael Bérubé, "Canons and Contexts in Context," American Literary History, vol 20, Summer 2008, issue 3, pages 457-464.
  15. ↑ "Paul Lauter Receives ADE March Award," WCSA Blog, February 19, 2018.
  16. ↑ "Carl Bode – Norman Holmes Pearson Prize". American Studies Association. Retrieved 17 January 2026.
  17. ↑ "Hubbell Medal 2001," American Literature Section, MLA.

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