Lionel Trilling
Lionel Trilling CC '25 MA '36 PhD '38 was a famous literary critic and a University Professor at Columbia. While a student here, Trilling won a Kellett Fellowship to study at the University of Cambridge.
Among other achievements, Trilling was instrumental in the development of the Core. With Jacques Barzun, he co-taught a precursor to Core classes known as the Colloquium on Important Books, and was later a frequent instructor in the proto-Lit Hum class known as Humanities A.
Trilling was also a mentor to a young Norman Podhoretz.
Older alumni, many of whom came to Columbia to "take Trilling," look back on his presence fondly.
The Lionel Trilling Book Award and the Lionel Trilling Seminars were both established in his memory in 1976, the year following his death.
