Coppola Conference Room

august coppola pic

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 CSULB 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 CSULB.
  • In the spirit of California’s Master Plan for Education, Dr. Coppola founded Weekend College at CSULB, 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 CSULB, 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 CSULB 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 He completed a second, yet unpublished, novel on John Wilkes Booth, and was at work on a third novel.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 CSULB.