Harry Keyishian


Harry Keyishian is an editor and academic. He is Professor Emeritus of English at Fairleigh Dickinson University and serves on the Editorial Board of Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. He directed Fairleigh Dickinson University Press from 1977 to 2017 and worked extensively on William Shakespeare and Armenian literature. As a teacher at the State University of New York, his refusal to sign an oath that he was not a member of the Communist Party led him to be the lead plaintiff in the Keyishian v. Board of Regents Supreme Court case that ruled states cannot prohibit employees from being members of the Communist Party.

Life and career

As an undergraduate student at Queens College, City University of New York in 1952, Keyishian became part of a committee that protested the firing of Vera Shlakman for refusing to testify if she had ever been a member of the Communist Party. In 1961, Keyishian joined the English Department at the University at Buffalo, from which he was terminated in February 1964 for refusing to sign an oath that he was not a member of the Communist Party.. He defended his dissertation, Thomas Dekker and the Rival Traditions at New York University in 1965, supervised by Professor Elkin Calhoun Wilson.
Harry Keyishian joined Fairleigh Dickinson University in 1965 after teaching at the University at Buffalo, the Bronx Community College, City College of New York, and the University of Maryland Overseas Program. In 1977 he became Director of Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, succeeding Charles Angoff in this role. He retired as Professor Emeritus in 2010 and continued as Director of Fairleigh Dickinson University Press until 2017, for which he now serves on the Editorial Board.

Books