Life and career
Harry Keyishian was born in The Bronx, New York, and raised in Queens, attending local public schools and Forest Hills High School. He attended Queens College from 1950-1954, receiving a bachelor’s degree in English literature, and then entered graduate school at New York University. As an undergraduate student at Queens College, City University of New York in 1952, Keyishian became part of a committee that protested the firing of Professsor Vera Shlakman for refusing to testify if she had ever been a member of the Communist Party. A member of the US Naval Reserve, Keyishian served on active duty from September 1956 to July 1958 at the US Naval Air Station in Argentia, Newfoundland in the Information and Education Office and, for the last seven months, as Station Manager of VOUS-Argentia (Voice of the United States). While on active duty, he received his MA in English from NYU and taught courses in English for the University of Maryland Overseas Program. After his discharge from the service, he taught part-time at NYU and City College in New York and, in spring, 1961, taught full-time at The Bronx Community College.
In September, 1961, Keyishian joined the English Department at the University at Buffalo, from which he was terminated in February 1964 for refusing to sign a then-required “loyalty” oath that he was not a member of the Communist Party. He and four colleagues challenged the Feinberg Law of New York State, which, their suit alleged, too broadly defined subversive activities and which improperly limited political association. Buffalo attorney Richard Lipsitz (November 25-1920-May 18, 2018) argued the case for the plaintiffs. The Feinberg Law was upheld by a three-judge panel in New York in 1966, but overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1967. Declaring that the terms of the Feinberg Law were too vague and intrusive, the court described academic freedom as “a special concern of the First Amendment which does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom,” which they characterized as “a marketplace of ideas.” The decision was written by Justice William Brennan. In 1987, the twentieth anniversary of the Keyishian decision, Harry Keyishian and fellow-litigant George Hochfield were interviewed by Bill Moyers in the PBS series “In Search of the Constitution." To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the decision, the American Association of University Professors honored Keyishian on June 17, 2017 at its annual awards luncheon “for his courage, integrity, and unstinting commitment to academic freedom.”
Harry Keyishian received his PhD in 1965 and joined the faculty at Fairleigh Dickinson University in 1965. In 1976 he became Director of Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, succeeding Charles Angoff in this role, continuing until 2017. During that period, partnered originally with Associated University Presses and, since 2010, with Rowman & Littlefield, the press published approximately1200 volumes. From 1976 to 1985, he served as co-editor, with Martin Green and Walter Cummins, of The Literary Review: An International Journal of Contemporary Writing. His published books are Michael Arlen (1976), Collected Essays on William Saroyan (1996), The Shapes of Revenge: Victimization, Vindictiveness, and Vengeance in Shakespeare (1996), and Screening Politics (2003). He has also published numerous essays and reviews in scholarly journals and magazines on a range of literary and theatrical topics. From 1992-2018, he organized annual Shakespeare Colloquiums that brought speakers to campus each October for an audience of teachers, students, and the general public.
He wrote extensively for, and served on the Editorial Board, of the quarterly journal Ararat, published by the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU). He is a member of the Modern Language Association, the Shakespeare Association of America, the International Shakespeare Association, and the Columbia University Seminar on Shakespeare. He retired as Professor Emeritus in 2010 but continued as Director of Fairleigh Dickinson University Press until 2017, for which he now serves on the Editorial Board.
Keyishian was married in 1966 to Marjorie Deiter Keyishian, a poet, fiction writer, and journalist who also taught at Fairleigh Dickinson University. They raised four daughters: teacher and dog trainer Sarah Keyishian; television writer and academic Elizabeth Keyishian Wilks; author and editor Amy Keyishian, and artist and actress Emily Keyishian. They have seven grandchildren. The family lived in Morristown, New Jersey.
CURRENT LECTURE TOPIC: "Shakespeare and the 'Woman Problem.'"
Personal and Program Grants
Project Director: "Activating Shakespeare: Seminars on Teaching Shakespeare Through Performance." February 28‑April 3, 1987. $18,500. NJ Department of Higher Education.
Co‑director (with Theodore Ross), "Shakespeare Among the Nations." Film and lecture series sponsored by New Jersey Committee for the Humanities: February to March 1977 ($5,500). Participants: Jan Kott, Mark Mirsky, Hitchens, Joan Mellon, Bernice Kliman, Maurice Charney.
Participant: "Law and Society in the Undergraduate Curriculum." Humanities Institute at Ramapo College, June 3‑7, 1990. Sponsored by NJ Department of Higher Education. Stipend: $200.
Summer Stipend, National Endowment for the Humanities. ($3000). Summer, 1984 for work on book "The Literature of Revenge."
Mellon Grant to develop interdisciplinary program in literature and psychology (with John Duryee): $750. Summer, 1983.
Participant, "Shakespeare in Performance." Humanities Institute, Folger Shakespeare Library, (Washington, D.C.). Sponsored by National Endowment for the Humanities ($1,500). July 22‑Aug. 18, 1982.
Harry Keyishian was born in The Bronx, New York, and raised in Queens, attending local public schools and Forest Hills High School. He attended Queens College from 1950-1954, receiving a bachelor’s degree in English literature, and then entered graduate school at New York University. As an undergraduate student at Queens College, City University of New York in 1952, Keyishian became part of a committee that protested the firing of Professsor Vera Shlakman for refusing to testify if she had ever been a member of the Communist Party. A member of the US Naval Reserve, Keyishian served on active duty from September 1956 to July 1958 at the US Naval Air Station in Argentia, Newfoundland in the Information and Education Office and, for the last seven months, as Station Manager of VOUS-Argentia (Voice of the United States). While on active duty, he received his MA in English from NYU and taught courses in English for the University of Maryland Overseas Program. After his discharge from the service, he taught part-time at NYU and City College in New York and, in spring, 1961, taught full-time at The Bronx Community College.
In September, 1961, Keyishian joined the English Department at the University at Buffalo, from which he was terminated in February 1964 for refusing to sign a then-required “loyalty” oath that he was not a member of the Communist Party. He and four colleagues challenged the Feinberg Law of New York State, which, their suit alleged, too broadly defined subversive activities and which improperly limited political association. Buffalo attorney Richard Lipsitz (November 25-1920-May 18, 2018) argued the case for the plaintiffs. The Feinberg Law was upheld by a three-judge panel in New York in 1966, but overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1967. Declaring that the terms of the Feinberg Law were too vague and intrusive, the court described academic freedom as “a special concern of the First Amendment which does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom,” which they characterized as “a marketplace of ideas.” The decision was written by Justice William Brennan. In 1987, the twentieth anniversary of the Keyishian decision, Harry Keyishian and fellow-litigant George Hochfield were interviewed by Bill Moyers in the PBS series “In Search of the Constitution." To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the decision, the American Association of University Professors honored Keyishian on June 17, 2017 at its annual awards luncheon “for his courage, integrity, and unstinting commitment to academic freedom.”
Harry Keyishian received his PhD in 1965 and joined the faculty at Fairleigh Dickinson University in 1965. In 1976 he became Director of Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, succeeding Charles Angoff in this role, continuing until 2017. During that period, partnered originally with Associated University Presses and, since 2010, with Rowman & Littlefield, the press published approximately1200 volumes. From 1976 to 1985, he served as co-editor, with Martin Green and Walter Cummins, of The Literary Review: An International Journal of Contemporary Writing. His published books are Michael Arlen (1976), Collected Essays on William Saroyan (1996), The Shapes of Revenge: Victimization, Vindictiveness, and Vengeance in Shakespeare (1996), and Screening Politics (2003). He has also published numerous essays and reviews in scholarly journals and magazines on a range of literary and theatrical topics. From 1992-2018, he organized annual Shakespeare Colloquiums that brought speakers to campus each October for an audience of teachers, students, and the general public.
He wrote extensively for, and served on the Editorial Board, of the quarterly journal Ararat, published by the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU). He is a member of the Modern Language Association, the Shakespeare Association of America, the International Shakespeare Association, and the Columbia University Seminar on Shakespeare. He retired as Professor Emeritus in 2010 but continued as Director of Fairleigh Dickinson University Press until 2017, for which he now serves on the Editorial Board.
Keyishian was married in 1966 to Marjorie Deiter Keyishian, a poet, fiction writer, and journalist who also taught at Fairleigh Dickinson University. They raised four daughters: teacher and dog trainer Sarah Keyishian; television writer and academic Elizabeth Keyishian Wilks; author and editor Amy Keyishian, and artist and actress Emily Keyishian. They have seven grandchildren. The family lived in Morristown, New Jersey.
CURRENT LECTURE TOPIC: "Shakespeare and the 'Woman Problem.'"
Personal and Program Grants
Project Director: "Activating Shakespeare: Seminars on Teaching Shakespeare Through Performance." February 28‑April 3, 1987. $18,500. NJ Department of Higher Education.
Co‑director (with Theodore Ross), "Shakespeare Among the Nations." Film and lecture series sponsored by New Jersey Committee for the Humanities: February to March 1977 ($5,500). Participants: Jan Kott, Mark Mirsky, Hitchens, Joan Mellon, Bernice Kliman, Maurice Charney.
Participant: "Law and Society in the Undergraduate Curriculum." Humanities Institute at Ramapo College, June 3‑7, 1990. Sponsored by NJ Department of Higher Education. Stipend: $200.
Summer Stipend, National Endowment for the Humanities. ($3000). Summer, 1984 for work on book "The Literature of Revenge."
Mellon Grant to develop interdisciplinary program in literature and psychology (with John Duryee): $750. Summer, 1983.
Participant, "Shakespeare in Performance." Humanities Institute, Folger Shakespeare Library, (Washington, D.C.). Sponsored by National Endowment for the Humanities ($1,500). July 22‑Aug. 18, 1982.