Eyal Amiran

Biography

Eyal Amiran, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine. He received his Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia in 1989. His research spans modernist literature, postmodern theory, digital media, and comics studies, with particular focus on the intersections of materiality, technology, and narrative form.

Amiran is the author of three books: "Wandering and Home: Beckett's Metaphysical Narrative" (Penn State UP, 1993), "Modernism and the Materiality of Texts" (Cambridge UP, 2016), and co-editor of "Essays in Postmodern Culture" (Oxford UP, 1993). His scholarly articles have appeared in journals including "Cultural Critique," "Genders," "Modern Fiction Studies," "Mosaic," "Parallax," "Symplokē," and "TDR," addressing topics from Beckett and Thomas Bernhard to digital sound ontology and the body in networked media. He has also lectured extensively on newspaper comics, examining works by George Herriman, Winsor McCay, and others through theoretical frameworks including psychoanalysis and race studies.

Amiran has served as Editor of "Postmodern Culture," published by Johns Hopkins University Press, from 1990-1996 and 2004-present, playing a role in the development of electronic academic publishing. He directed the Graduate Studies program in Comparative Literature at UC Irvine from 2013-2016 and again in 2024-26, and has served on editorial boards for multiple journals. He has directed numerous Ph.D. dissertations to completion and organized symposia on topics including financialization and the antisocial.

Education

• Ph.D. in English, University of Virginia, 1989
• M.A. in English, University of Virginia, 1984
• B.A. in Behavioral Sciences, University of Chicago, 1981

Distinctions

• Junior Fellow, UVA Society of Fellows, 1986-1988
• Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, UVA, 1987-1988
• Essay of the Year award, The Serials Librarian, 1997