Dorrit Cohn, literature scholar, 87
Dorrit Cohn ’45, Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature Emeritus, died on March 11. She was 87. Cohn came to Harvard in 1971. A scholar of German and comparative literature, Cohn was one of three women appointed to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) in 1971. (Prior to that year, FAS had tenured only four other women in its history.) During a long academic career that began at Indiana University in 1964 and ran through her retirement in 1995, she won a number of honors, including a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship (1970-71), the Radcliffe Graduate Society Medal (1982), and the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Award (1984). Colleagues of Cohn mourned her passing and remembered her as a brilliant scholar, a good friend, and a sharp wit. “Dorrit was a great conversationalist, both witty and warm, and an extraordinarily hospitable hostess,” said Wernor Sollors, Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English Literature and...