RIP Wolfgang Iser

I don't expect anyone to know his name beyond those who have an interest in deep literary theory, but since I know a few folks here do have that interest, thus this thread. On a personal note, I helped him a few times at the library and he was quite a gracious man. It definitely wasn't just Derrida that made UCI's name on that front. Here's the obit as it was circulated last night from the dean of the School of Humanities:

It is with great sadness that I report the death of Professor Wolfgang
Iser, Emeritus Professor of English and Comparative Literature. At the
time of his death, Professor Iser was one of the most prominent
literary theorists in the world. A founder of the "Constance School,"
along with Hans Robert Jauss and Juri Striedter at the newly
established University of Constance on the German/Swiss border, he
shifted the focus of German literary theory in the late 1960s from the
author to the reader. Rather than ask what a work of literature means,
he turned his attention to what a work does to the reader. His own
works of theory and criticism had a major impact on literary study in
the United States with the publication of THE IMPLIED READER (1972)
and THE ACT OF READING (1976).

In 1976, Professor Iser came to UC Irvine as a visiting Professor of
German. In 1978 he became a permanent member of the UCI faculty in the
Department of English and Comparative Literature, dividing his time
between Constance and Irvine. Along with Murray Krieger, J. Hillis
Miller, and Jacques Derrida, he helped make UCI one of the most
important centers of literary theory in the world. Expanding on his
groundbreaking work on the effect of literature on the reader
(Wirkungsaesthetik), he explored new territory by developing the field
of "literary anthropology," which speculates on how literature
functions in the human experience. This phase of his career resulted
in PROSPECTING (1989) and THE FICTIVE AND THE IMAGINARY (1993). Noted
for his excellent readings of individual works as well as for his
theoretical positions, he also published a major book on Shakespeare's
history plays, STAGING POLITICS (1993), and numerous essays on
Fielding, Pater, Joyce, and Beckett. In 1991 he retired from the
University of Constance, but continued to teach at UCI until 2005. In
1994 he delivered the Wellek Lectures at UCI.
(http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~scctr/Wellek/iser/index.html)

Extremely productive even after retirement, in 2006 he published HOW
TO DO THEORY and lectured in nine different countries, playing, as he
had done for over 25 years, the role of international ambassador for
UCI. Born July 22, 1926, in Marienberg, Saxony, Germany, he was 80
years old when he died, January 24, 2007.