page_title: Alan M. Wald
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Alan M. Wald / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Chandler Davis and Alan M. Wald in 2011
context_page_description: Alan Maynard Wald, usually Alan M. Wald or Alan Wald, is an American professor emeritus of English Literature and American Culture at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and writer of 20th-Century American literature who focuses on Communist writers; he is an expert on the American 20th-Century "Literary Left."
context_section_description: Upon his retirement, the Regents of the University of Michigan saluted Wald a "distinguished teacher and researcher by naming Alan M. Wald professor emeritus of English language and literature and professor emeritus of American culture," stating:  
  Professor Wald examined the varied currents of U.S. leftwing politics and radical esthetics, captured the specificity of writers' lives both renowned and rediscovered by his own investigations, and widened the corpus of U.S. literature to include writers across all lines of race, gender, class, and sexuality...  served as director of the Program in American Culture (2000-03) and played an instrumental role in establishing the department as a leader in multicultural scholarship... [and] worked to assure racial equality in all aspects of University life and to preserve academic freedom.
       In March 2013, the University of Michigan held a two-day conference in honor of Wald's four decades of work, called "Lineages of the Literary Left:  A Symposium in Honor of Alan M. Wald."  Speakers included Tariq Ali and Michael Löwy.  Proceedings were published as Lineages of the Literary Left:  Essays in Honor of Alan M. Wald by the University of Michigan's Maize Books.
  In 2007, he was appointed Collegiate Professor by the Regents and named his chair in honor of Chandler Davis, mathematician – and one-time political prisoner, after being fired from the University of Michigan and followed by blacklisting).  In 2011, he presented a lecturer under the auspices of this position which was attended by the 85-year-old Davis.
  Students of Wald's include:
  Howard Brick, Louis Evans Professor of History, University of Michigan
  Robbie Lieberman, Professor of American Studies and Chair of the Interdisciplinary Studies Department,  Kennesaw State University
  Paula Rabinowitz, Professor Emerita of English Literature and American Studies, University of Minnesota
  Regarding his lifelong activism, Wald has stated, "I have always been a bit player in these events, never a leader."
caption: Wald with Chandler Davis (2011)
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