Abbott Ikeler

For nearly five decades, Abbott Ikeler has published poems, essays, memoirs, fiction, and literary criticism.. His most recent book, a well-researched look at his own German ancestry, The Ikelers: A Family Chronicle, 1753-2018, was privately printed in 2018. As for his poetry, dozens have appeared in small press anthologies since 2000 and two major collection were published in 2007 and 2014.. Earlier in his career, Ikeler's full-length study of Thomas Carlyle, titled Puritan Temper and Transcendental Faith, was published by Ohio State University Press and received favorable reviews in both the New York Times and the London Times..

In addition to his work on Carlyle, Ikeler has written extensively on Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope and Emily Bronte. He was a featured guest speaker on these authors and other Victorian topics at Bochum University in Germany from 2011 to 2014. Since 2001, he has often read his poetry aloud at venues in New York, Cambridge, and Providence.

Ikeler's teaching career began at Bowdoin College as an assistant professor of English in 1969, continued at the University of Muenster in Germany first as a Fulbright Senior Teaching Fellow and later as a guest professor., Toward the end of his working career, he was both professor and Graduate Program Director of Communications at Emerson College. He retired from Emerson in 2009, but continued to teach part-time there and at the University of Rhode Island until 2015.

Ikeler holds a PhD in English literature from the University of London, a master's in English from the University of Pittsburgh, and a B.A. from Harvard College.