Earl Miner, specialist in English and Japanese literature, dies

Earl Miner, an emeritus professor at Princeton and a leading scholar of English and Japanese literature, died April 17 after a long illness. He was 77.

Miner joined the Princeton faculty in 1972 and retired as the Townsend Martin, Class of 1917, Professor of English and Comparative Literature in 2000. A specialist in early modern English literature, classical Japanese literature and comparative poetics, Miner was awarded with the University's Behrman Award in 1993 for distinguished achievement in the humanities. He also received the Order of the Rising Sun from the Japanese government in 1994 in recognition of his commitment to Japanese literature.

"Few scholars of his generation -- or later ones, for that matter -- had anything like his intellectual and linguistic range," said Sandra Bermann, chair of the Department of Comparative Literature. "Studying literature East and West, and exploring the theoretical bases for such intercultural comparison, were abiding intellectual passions. As one of the early members of Princeton's Department of Comparative Literature, Earl quickly extended its reach well beyond the European literatures."

More details are available in a news release.

Contact: Eric Quinones (609) 258-3601