Professor Brian Corman has made a lasting and continuing contribution to the Department of English at the University of Toronto.
After Professor Corman received his PhD from the University of Chicago, he joined the Department of English at Erindale College (now University of Toronto, Mississauga) at the University of Toronto in 1970. He is both a fellow of Trinity College and a senior fellow of Massey College. Brian Corman served as chair of the Department of English (St. George) in the Faculty of Arts and Science, and graduate chair of the tri-campus Graduate English Department from 1997 to 2008. In addition to his teaching, Professor Corman has been a member of Governing Council since 2000, and somehow he found time to also serve on numerous university committees. Furthermore, he is currently serving in his second year of a five year appointment as Dean of the School of Graduate Studies at the University of Toronto and Vice-Provost, Graduate Education.
A specialist in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British literature, Professor Corman has written extensively on dramatists and novelists, literary theory, the history of the novel, and seventeenth- and eighteenth-century drama. His publications include Women Novelists before Jane Austen: The Critics and their Canons (2008) and Genre and Generic Change in English Comedy, 1660-1710 (1993). His wide ranging teaching interests include critical theory, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British literature, comedy and satire.
Professor Corman’s research has been supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He has served on a number of peer-review committees, advisory councils and editorial boards, and as editor of the University of Toronto Quarterly for many years. He is a member of the Canadian and American Associations for Eighteenth-Century Studies, the Humanities Association of Canada, and the Canadian Association of Chairs of English (including serving a year as its Chair).
The Brian Corman Graduate Prize Fund was begun with donations from various donors including friends, students and colleagues of Professor Corman. The prize is to be awarded to a graduate student or students in the Department of English, who are working on Restoration and/or eighteenth-century studies, and who have distinguished themselves both academically and by their leadership and contribution to the life of the University through student governance, community service or volunteer work. The first award will be given when funds permit, and although the prize is designed to be given annually, the award will not be issued in a given year unless a suitable candidate is identified; if not issued, then the funds will be carried forward to the subsequent year. Currently, we are seeking donations for this fund, and are confident that we will soon reach the point where it shall be a self-sustaining annual award. This award will be a fitting recognition for Professor Corman, an educator who left his mark on the Department of English in many, varied ways, not the least of which continues to be his dedication to Graduate students.
To contribute to this award fund, please visit the donation page for The Brian Corman Graduate Prize.