Arnold Band

July 22, 2024

The faculty in the Department of Comparative Literature mourn the loss of our cherished colleague and the founder of our program, Professor Emeritus Arnold J. Band. We wanted to express our deepest condolences to his family, and to assure them that we will hold Professor Band dearly and steadfastly in our memory, grateful for all he did to make our program what it is today, and following his guiding example as we move forward in the twenty-first century.

Arnold J. Band obtained his PhD from Harvard in Classics but promptly began to work in Jewish Studies when he came to UCLA.  A passionate intellectual, Arnie, as many of his friends called him, took over the supervision of what was a number of non-degree courses in Humanities. He requested an FTE from the the Dean of Humanities and began a search for a colleague.   Working with an independent Scandinavian Section, he recruited a split appointment in Comparative Literature and Scandinavian from the English Department at Hunter College in New York City, and he then began to develop both Jewish Studies and Comparative Literature programs. Because of his indefatigable labors, Professor Band succeeded in getting Comparative Literature established as a college major with BA, MA, and PhD programs and then as a Comparative Literature Department. He succeeded in adding Italian, German and Classics split-appointments to the Comparative Literature faculty, while at the same time expanding Hebrew and Jewish Studies programs in the Department of Near Eastern Languages.  He was a wonderful mentor to our students and won the Distinguished Teaching Award.  He will be missed by all of his friends, colleagues, and students.