J. Hillis Miller

{{Short description|American literary critic and professor (1928–2021)}}

{{about|the literary critic and professor of English|the psychologist and president of the University of Florida|J. Hillis Miller Sr.}}

{{Infobox academic

| name = J. Hillis Miller

| image = J H Miller.jpg

| birth_name = Joseph Hillis Miller

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1928|3|5}}

| birth_place = Newport News, Virginia, U.S.

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2021|2|7|1928|3|5}}

| death_place = Sedgwick, Maine, U.S.

| spouse = {{marriage|Dorothy James|1949|January 2021|end = died}}

| partner =

| party =

| relations = J. Hillis Miller Sr. (father)

| children = 3

| occupation = Literary critic

| known_for = Advancing literary deconstruction as means to study literature

|workplaces = {{#statements:P108}}

|alma_mater = {{#statements:P69}}

|doctoral_advisor = {{#statements:P184}}

|academic_advisors = {{#statements:P1066}}

|doctoral_students = {{#statements:P185}}

| signature =

| website =

| footnotes =

}}

Joseph Hillis Miller Jr. (March 5, 1928 – February 7, 2021){{cite web |title= Miller, J. Hillis (Joseph Hillis), 1928–|url= http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79145495.html |publisher= Library of Congress |access-date= July 22, 2014 |quote= b. 3/5/28}}{{cite web|url=https://news.uci.edu/2021/02/11/remembering-distinguished-professor-emeritus-j-hillis-miller/|title=Remembering Distinguished Professor Emeritus J. Hillis Miller|first=Pat|last=Harriman|work=UCI News|date=February 13, 2021|access-date=February 13, 2021}} was an American literary critic and scholar who advanced theories of literary deconstruction. He was part of the Yale School along with scholars including Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida, and Geoffrey Hartman, who advocated deconstruction as an analytical means by which the relationship between literary text and the associated meaning could be analyzed. Through his career, Miller was associated with the Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, and University of California, Irvine, and wrote over 50 books studying a wide range of American and British literature using principles of deconstruction.

Early life

Miller was born in Newport News, Virginia, on March 5, 1928, to Nell Martin (née Crizer) and J. Hillis Miller Sr.J. Hillis Miller Jr., On Literature (Routledge, 2002), p. 142.{{Cite news|last=Risen|first=Clay|date=February 13, 2021|title=J. Hillis Miller, 92, Dies; Helped Revolutionize Literary Studies|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/us/j-hillis-miller-dead.html|access-date=February 14, 2021|issn=0362-4331}} His mother was a homemaker and his father a Baptist minister who was professor of psychology at the College of William & Mary, and would go on to serve as the president of the University of Florida.

Miller graduated from Oberlin College (BA summa cum laude, 1948) switching his major of study from Physics to English. He moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to start his masters at Harvard University. During this time, he contracted polio and was noted to have completed his dissertation writing with his left hand, having lost the ability to use his right hand. He completed his masters from the university in 1949 and his PhD in 1952.

Career

Miller started his career as a member of the faculty at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, in 1953. During this time, Miller was heavily influenced by fellow Johns Hopkins professor and Belgian literary critic Georges Poulet and the Geneva School of literary criticism, which Miller characterized as "the consciousness of the consciousness of another, the transposition of the mental universe of an author into the interior space of the critic's mind."Vincent B. Leitch, ed., (2001). The Norton Anthology of Literary Criticism. "Georges Poulet". New York: W. W. Norton & Company, pp. 1318–1319. This was also the time that was introduced to Paul de Man who was a member of a faculty and Jacques Derrida, a visiting professor, with whom he would remain associated.

In 1972, he joined the faculty at Yale University where he taught for fourteen years. At Yale, he worked alongside prominent literary critics Paul de Man and Geoffrey Hartman, where they were collectively known as the Yale School of deconstruction, in contention with prominent Yale influence theorist Harold Bloom.Vincent B. Leitch (Ed.). (2001). The Norton Anthology of Literary Criticism. "Cleanth Brooks" 1352.

By this time, Miller had emerged as an important humanities and literature scholar specializing in Victorian and Modernist literature, with a keen interest in the ethics of reading and reading as a cultural act. At a time, he was supervising at least 14 doctoral dissertations studying Victorian literature and novels.

In 1986, Miller left Yale to work at the University of California Irvine, where he was later followed by his Yale colleague Derrida.{{Cite web|url=http://archives.cjr.org/year/91/5/deconstruction.asp|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061003000804/http://archives.cjr.org/year/91/5/deconstruction.asp|url-status=dead|title=Deconstruction, by Mitchell Stephens CJR, Sept/Oct 91|archive-date=October 3, 2006}} During the same year, he served as president of the Modern Language Association, and was honored by the MLA with a lifetime achievement award in 2005.{{Cite web|url=http://today.uci.edu/news/release_detail.asp?key=1417|title=Today@UCI: Press Releases|date=February 1, 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060201031819/http://today.uci.edu/news/release_detail.asp?key=1417|archive-date=February 1, 2006}} In 2004, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.{{Cite web|title=APS Member History|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=J.+Hillis+Miller&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|access-date=2021-06-15|website=search.amphilsoc.org}} Both at Yale and UC Irvine, Miller mentored an entire generation of American literary critics including noted queer theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick.{{Cite web|url=http://www.humanities.uci.edu/english/j/aboutjhm.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060907001420/http://www.humanities.uci.edu/english/j/aboutjhm.html|url-status=dead|title=About J. Hillis Miller|archive-date=September 7, 2006}} He was Distinguished Research Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California Irvine until 2001.{{Cite web|url=http://www.faculty.uci.edu/scripts/UCIFacultyProfiles/english/faculty/profile.cfm?ID=2786|title=UCI E&CL Faculty Profile|access-date=January 31, 2006|archive-date=March 15, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150315063343/http://www.faculty.uci.edu/scripts/UCIFacultyProfiles/english/faculty/profile.cfm?ID=2786|url-status=dead}}

After his retirement, he wrote over 15 books and many articles in journals and was also active on the international lecturing circuit. He was also served on dissertation committees in his retirement supervising dissertations and doctoral theses works at UC Irvine, University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Queensland.{{Cite web|title=In memoriam|url=https://www.humanities.uci.edu/SOH/calendar/story_details.php?recid=2401|access-date=February 14, 2021|website=www.humanities.uci.edu|language=en}}

= Role as a deconstructionist =

Miller was associated with a group of scholars including Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida, and Geoffrey Hartman, collectively referred to as the Yale School, who advanced deconstruction, an analytical approach of associating and drawing linkages between literary text and the associated meaning. The theory espoused that words and texts had linkages to other expressed words and texts. These built on ideas and themes that Derrida and de Man had brought along from Europe, while Miller joined them. He applied these techniques to a range of American and British works, including prose as well as poetry. Throughout his career, he would go on to write over 35 books and many articles in journals advancing these themes.

Miller defined the movement as searching for "the thread in the text in question which will unravel it all", and said that there are multiple layers to any text, both its clear surface and its deep countervailing subtext:

On the one hand, the "obvious and univocal reading" always contains the "deconstructive reading" as a parasite encrypted within itself as part of itself. On the other hand, the "deconstructive" reading can by no means free itself from the metaphysical reading it means to contest.{{Cite web|url=https://brocku.ca/humanities/english-language-and-literature/|title=English Language & Literature|website=Brock University}}

Miller's "The Critic as Host" could be viewed as a reply to M. H. Abrams, who presented a paper, "The Deconstructive Angel," at a session of the Modern Language Association in December 1976, criticizing deconstruction and the methods of Miller. Miller presented his paper just after Abrams's presentation at the same session.{{cite book|last1=Leitch|first1=Vincent B. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eYXhAwAAQBAJ&q=j.+hillis+miller+m.+h.+abrams+modern+language+association&pg=PT24|title=Literary Criticism in the 21st Century: Theory Renaissance|date=2014|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic|isbn=978-1472527707|location=London|page=15|access-date=January 27, 2018}} He made the case that words and text lacking objective outside or providing meaning didn't mean they were the "prison-house of language," but, instead, they were a "place of joy" where the critics had the freedom to associate and provide various possibilities eventually guiding the meaning. The movement continued to gain popularity through the next decade, presenting a paper called "Triumph of Theory" at the 1986 session of the Modern Language Association. He was also noted to have made the topic of deconstruction more accessible to a wider audience by publishing in magazines including Newsweek, and The New York Times Magazine.

He was also a defender of the movement in the late 1980s when the field was losing some of its popularity. He leaned on ideas that he termed 'ethics of learning' where he countered critics by arguing that it was the reader's obligation to try and find meaning in the text even when it appeared impossible.

Personal life

Miller married Dorothy James in 1949, and remained married until her death in January 2021. The couple had two daughters and a son.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/us/j-hillis-miller-dead.html|title=J. Hillis Miller, 92, Dies; Helped Revolutionize Literary Studies|newspaper=The New York Times|date=February 13, 2021|last1=Risen|first1=Clay}} Miller died from COVID-19[https://twitter.com/mdpotolsky/status/1358879645177847809 Totally gutted to hear about J. Hillis Miller’s passing from complications of COVID. He was always my model as a teacher, scholar, and above all, as a professional. So incredibly sad.] on February 7, 2021, the month after Dorothy's death, at his home in Sedgwick, Maine; he was 92.

Books

(1958) [http://victorian-studies.net/dickens/miller-dickens.pdf Charles Dickens: The World of His Novels]{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=J. Hillis|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/475936034|title=Charles Dickens : the world of his novels|date=1969|publisher=Indiana University Press|oclc=475936034}}
(1963) The Disappearance of God: Five Nineteenth-Century Writers{{Cite journal|last1=Willey|first1=Basil|last2=Miller|first2=J. Hillis|date=1964|title=The Disappearance of God: Five Nineteenth-Century Writers|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3721212|journal=The Modern Language Review|volume=59|issue=3|pages=467|doi=10.2307/3721212|jstor=3721212|issn=0026-7937|via=}}
(1965) Poets of Reality: Six Twentieth-Century Writers{{Cite journal|date=March 1, 1967|title=A Vision of Reality: A Study of Liberalism in Twentieth-Century Verse; Poets of Reality: Six Twentieth-Century Writers; Swan and Shadow: Yeats's Dialogue with History|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/english/16.94.152|journal=English|volume=16|issue=94|pages=152–154|doi=10.1093/english/16.94.152|issn=0013-8215}}
(1968) The Form of Victorian Fiction: Thackeray, Dickens, Trollope, George Eliot, Meredith, and Hardy{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=J. Hillis|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/437159|title=The form of Victorian fiction: Thackeray, Dickens, Trollope, George Eliot, Meredith, and Hardy|date=1968|publisher=University of Notre Dame Press|isbn=0-268-98233-3|oclc=437159}}
(1970) Thomas Hardy, Distance and Desire{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=HJoseph Hillis|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/901966420|title=Thomas Hardy: distance and desire|date=1970|publisher=Belknap Press of Harvard University Press |isbn=0-674-88505-8|oclc=901966420}}
(1971) Charles Dickens and George Cruikshank{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=J. Hillis|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1171551835|title=Charles Dickens and George Cruikshank: papers read at a Clark Library Seminar on May 9, 1970|date=1971|publisher=William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California|oclc=1171551835}}
(1982) Fiction and Repetition: Seven English Novels{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=J. Hillis|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/824649574|title=Fiction and repetition: seven English novels|date=1982|publisher=Basil Blackwell|isbn=0-631-13032-2|oclc=824649574}}
(1985) The Linguistic Moment: from Wordsworth to Stevens{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=J. Hillis|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/892525680|title=The linguistic moment: from Wordsworth to Stevens|year=2014|publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-60950-8|oclc=892525680}}
(1985) The Lesson of Paul de Man{{Cite book|last1=Brooks|first1=Peter|last2=Felman|first2=Shoshana|last3=Miller|first3=J. Hillis|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/54689313|title=The Lesson of Paul de Man|date=1985|publisher=Yale University Press|oclc=54689313}}
(1987) The Ethics of Reading: Kant, de Man, Eliot, Trollope, James, and Benjamin{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=Joseph Hillis|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/242180739|title=The ethics of reading: Kant, de Man, Eliot, Trollope, James, and Benjamin|date=1987|publisher=Columbia Univ. Press|isbn=0-231-06335-0|oclc=242180739}}
(1990) Versions of Pygmalion{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=J. Hillis|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/434546447|title=Versions of Pygmalion|date=1990|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=0-674-93485-7|oclc=434546447}}
(1990) Victorian Subjects{{Cite book|last=Miler|first=Joseph Hillis|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/797604262|title=Victorian subjects|date=1990|publisher=Harvester-Wheatsheaf|isbn=0-7450-0820-8|oclc=797604262}}
(1990) Tropes, Parables, Performatives: Essays on Twentieth Century Literature{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=Joseph Hillis|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/797496522|title=Tropes, parables, performatives: essays on twentieth-century literature|date=1990|publisher=Harvester-Wheatsheaf|isbn=0-7450-0836-4|oclc=797496522}}
(1991) Theory Now and Then{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=J. Hillis|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/749340432|title=Theory now and then|date=1991|publisher=Duke University|isbn=0-8223-1112-7|oclc=749340432}}
(1991) Hawthorne & History: Defacing It{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=J. Hillis|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/803308783|title=Hawthorne & history: defacing it|date=1991|publisher=Basil Blackwell|isbn=0-631-17559-8|oclc=803308783}}
(1992) Ariadne's Thread: Story Lines{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=J. Hillis|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1150412094|title=Ariadne's thread: story lines|date=1992|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=0-300-06309-1|location=|pages=|oclc=1150412094}}
(1992) Illustration{{Cite book|last1=Miller|first1=Joseph Hillis|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OhRtJZZLoGoC&q=(1992)+Illustration|title=Illustration|last2=Miller|first2=Uci Distinguished Professor Emeritus J. Hillis|date=1992|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-44357-0|language=en}}
(1995) Topographies{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=Joseph Hillis|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ctlRDJt3DfQC&q=(1995)+Topographies|title=Topographies|date=1995|publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=978-0-8047-2379-4|language=en}}
(1998) Reading Narrative{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=J. Hillis|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/43477036|title=Reading narrative|date=1998|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press|isbn=0-585-14536-9|oclc=43477036}}
(1999) Black Holes{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=J. Hillis|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/39765597|title=Black holes|date=1999|publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=0-8047-3243-4|oclc=39765597}}
(2001) Others{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=Joseph Hillis|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TrQEEAAAQBAJ&q=Hillis+Miller+(2001)+Others|title=Others|date=January 12, 2021|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-22405-3|language=en}}
(2001) Speech Acts in Literature{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=Joseph Hillis|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ld5ME9vArBYC&q=(2001)+Speech+Acts+in+Literature|title=Speech Acts in Literature|date=2001|publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=978-0-8047-4216-0|language=en}}
(2002) On Literature{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=Hillis|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DBKCAgAAQBAJ&q=J+Hillis+Miller+(2002)+On+Literature|title=On Literature|date=September 2, 2003|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-50760-3|language=en}}
(2005) The J. Hillis Miller Reader{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=J. Hillis|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1145341150|title=The J. Hillis Miller reader|year=2005|isbn=978-1-4744-7365-1|oclc=1145341150}}
(2005) Literature as Conduct: Speech Acts in Henry James{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=J. Hillis|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/921851699|title=Literature as conduct : speech acts in Henry James|date=2005|publisher=Fordham University Press|isbn=0-8232-2538-0|oclc=921851699}}
(2009) The Medium is the Maker: Browning, Freud, Derrida, and the New Telepathic Ecotechnologies{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=J. Hillis|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/939012510|title=The medium is the maker : Browning, Freud, Derrida and the new telepathic ecotechnologies|date=2009|publisher=Sussex Academic Press|isbn=978-1-84519-319-5|oclc=939012510}}
(2009) For Derrida{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=Joseph Hillis|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/609788716|title=For Derrida|date=2009|publisher=Fordham Univ. Press|isbn=978-0-8232-3034-1|oclc=609788716}}
(2011) The Conflagration of Community: Fiction Before and After Auschwitz{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=J. Hillis|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226527239.001.0001|title=The Conflagration of Community|date=2011|publisher=University of Chicago Press|doi=10.7208/chicago/9780226527239.001.0001|isbn=978-0-226-52722-2|s2cid=191668814 }}
(2012) Reading for Our Time: Adam Bede and Middlemarch Revisited{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=J. Hillis|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/795695186|title=Reading for our time : 'Adam Bede' and 'Middlemarch' revisited|date=2012|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|isbn=978-0-7486-4670-8|oclc=795695186}}
(2014) Communities in Fiction{{Citation|last=Miller|first=J. Hillis|title=Postmodern Communities in Pynchon and Cervantes|date=December 2, 2014|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.5422/fordham/9780823263103.003.0006|work=Communities in Fiction|pages=264–307|publisher=Fordham University Press|doi=10.5422/fordham/9780823263103.003.0006|isbn=978-0-8232-6310-3|access-date=February 14, 2021}}
(2015) An Innocent Abroad: Lectures in China{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=J. Hillis|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv47wcdr|title=An Innocent Abroad|date=November 30, 2015|publisher=Northwestern University Press|doi=10.2307/j.ctv47wcdr|isbn=978-0-8101-3163-7}}
(2016) Thinking Literature Across Continents (with Ranjan Ghosh)

References

External links

=Archival collections=

[http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt1z09r9q4 Guide to the J. Hillis Miller Papers.] Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.
[http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8dr2wvj Guide to the Barbara Cohen Manuscript Materials.] Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.
[http://www.homomimeticus.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Lawtoo_Miller.CriticasMime.pdf] Nidesh Lawtoo and J. Hillis Miller, The Critic and the Mime: J. Hillis Miller in Dialogue with Nidesh Lawtoo, The Minnesota Review, 95.
[http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=2786 Miller's webpage at the University of California at Irvine]
[http://www.ucd.ie/humanities/events/podcasts/2012/hillis-miller-interview/ Recording of interview with Miller at the UCD Humanities Institute]
[http://newbooksincriticaltheory.com/2012/08/23/j-hillis-miller-the-conflagration-of-community-fiction-before-and-after-auschwitz-university-of-chicago-press-2011/ Interview] with Miller about his recent book The Conflagration of Community: Fiction Before and After Auschwitz on "New Books in Critical Theory"