Coppola Conference Room
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In Memoriam: Comparative World Literature and Classics Conference Room (MHB 518) named after DR. AUGUST COPPOLA
The Comparative World Literature Program would like to honor the memory of August Coppola (1934-2009), one of the founding members of the Comparative Literature Department in 1967.
Dr. Coppola’s laurels at Ӱ are extensive
- He founded and was the first Director of the University Honors Program, which thrives today, and he won the first Distinguished Teaching Award given at Ӱ.
- In the spirit of California’s Master Plan for Education, Dr. Coppola founded Weekend College at Ӱ, which made advanced education available to people who worked full time.
- He also founded the literary journal genre, which has been published by the Department since 1967.
- He was a co-founder of the Annual Comparative Literature Conference at Ӱ, which is still organized to this day.
- Dr. Coppola’s influence on campus was such that Governor Jerry Brown nominated him to the Board of Trustees for the CSU.
His scholarly and intellectual interests were broad.
- From his early work on philosophical and psychological issues in Hemingway and Sartre, he came to explore the relation of these issues to human perception.
- He created an experimental interactive exhibit, a “touch museum”, at Ӱ which he designed to be experienced through touch alone.
- Dr. Coppola also published a novel, The Intimacy, about a man who privileges touch over other senses.
- After Dr. Coppola moved to the Bay Area, he developed this interest in tangibility by working to create the Tactile Dome at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.
- Dr. Coppola also published an audio-book, The Sound of World Poetry, in which he read selections from world literature. He completed a second, yet unpublished, novel on John Wilkes Booth, and was at work on a third novel.
The August Coppola Conference Room has been in use since 2009.
- It is impossible to recount all of the learning opportunities which Dr. Coppola created during his tenure at Ӱ.
