Renowned Literary Critic to Leave Yale and Join UCI

J. Hillis Miller, a literary critic whose work has been praised as brilliant but denounced by some as deliberately obscure, will leave Yale University to join UC Irvine on July 1, University of California President David Gardner announced Friday.

The appointment is considered an academic coup for UCI, said Murray Krieger, who began UCI’s critical theory program. “It is a terrible loss for Yale but an absolute breakthrough for Irvine,” said Krieger, who was instrumental in recruiting Miller.

“With him and others who will follow, Irvine should be the best place anywhere for literary criticism.”

Gardner announced Miller’s hiring during a UC Board of Regents meeting in Riverside.

Miller is the Frederick W. Hilles Professor of English and Professor of Comparative Literature at Yale. He is a prominent member of what is called “the Yale school of criticism” and a leader in the “deconstructionist” movement.

Deconstructionists believe that language is circular--words refer to words--and that a text may have multiple, or even opposite, meanings.

Miller is the author of seven books and more than 60 articles. A native of Virginia, he earned his doctorate from Harvard University. He has been at Yale since 1972.

UC Irvine most frequently draws attention because of its work and research in science and medicine. But Chancellor Jack W. Peltason said Friday that Miller’s decision to come to the Irvine campus underscores the national reputation of UCI’s scholarly work in humanities. “With the addition of J. Hillis Miller to our already strong program in literary criticism, our School of Humanities will command even closer attention in academic circles,” Peltason said.

“Miller’s arrival is an indication of our depth in humanities as well as in science and medicine,” Peltason added.