In Memoriam: Marjorie Perloff, 1931-2024

Marjorie Perloff, a poetry scholar and professor emerita at Stanford University, passed away on March 24 at the age of 92.

Dr. Perloff’s career in higher education began in 1966 as a faculty member with the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where she eventually rose to the rank of full professor. She went on to serve for five years as a professor of English with the University of Maryland, and later as a professor of English and comparative literature with the University of Southern California for 10 years.

In 1986, Dr. Perloff joined the faculty at Stanford University as a professor of English and comparative literature. Her position was endowed in 1990 and she earned the title of Sadie Dernham Patek Professor of Humanities. During her 14-year tenure with the university, she held various leadership positions including director of the undergradaute honors program for the department of English and director of graduate studies.

As a scholar and literary critic, Dr. Perloff focused her work on contemporary and experimental poetry. She authored over a dozen books including Edge of Irony: Modernism in the Shadow of the Habsburg Empire (University of Chicago Press, 2016) and Wittgenstein’s Ladder: Poetic Language and the Strangeness of the Ordinary (University of Chicago Press, 1999). Throughout her career, she served as an instructor and mentor to both graduate and undergraduate students, teaching courses on literary theory, poetry, comparative literature, digital poetics, and visual arts anaylsis.

Dr. Perloff studied English at Oberlin College in Ohio, ultimately graduating from Barnard College in New York with a bachelor’s degree. She went on to receive her master’s degree and doctorate in English from the Catholic University of America.