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.
Trilling was a recipient of the Mark Van Doren Award. The Lionel Trilling Book Award and the Lionel Trilling Seminars were both established in his memory in 1976, the year following his death.
