Irwin Weil

Weil moved to Northwestern University in 1966. He is published widely in the field of Russian literature and culture, with special attention to the classics of 19th-century Russian literature and the Soviet Period. His principal focus has been on the connections between Russian literature and music.

While at Brandeis, Weil was a professor of Russian literature and linguistics. He was influential in the development and growth of the Slavic studies program at Brandeis. Weil's first major work—a dissertation on the development of the writing style of Maksim Gorky—was completed in 1958. His other works include Notes on the Contemporary Soviet Literary Scene and Soviet Literary Activities.

Weil received his bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago in 1948 and his master's degree in Slavic studies in 1951. After three years of working on a Soviet census for the U.S. Library of Congress, Weil began his Ph.D. at Harvard University, where he had received a Ford Foundation fellowship to work toward his doctorate in Slavic studies. After receiving the degree in 1960, he taught at Brandeis University.

Irwin Weil (born 1928) is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literature at Northwestern University. He is noted for his work in promoting cultural exchange and mutual understanding between the USA and the USSR/Russia, and for attracting large numbers of students to his courses. He recorded a popular series of lectures Classics of Russian Literature for The Teaching Company in 2005.

Irwin Weil was born in 1928 in Cincinnati, Ohio, of German Jewish and Lithuanian Jewish immigrants. His father, Sidney, was a former owner of the Cincinnati Reds baseball team. Initially majoring in economics at the University of Chicago, he was drawn to Slavic studies after discovering Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov in a required literature course and being (in his words) "knocked for a loop". He reports that he ran to a bookstore, picked up a copy of Crime and Punishment, read it in two days, and resolved to learn the language of such a great body of literature.