Robert Cochran

Robert Cochran is Professor of English at the University of Arkansas. He won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1989, and has been awarded three Fulbright lecturing assignments (Romania in 1985, Hungary in 1986, and Korea in 1995). Professor Cochran has refused to specialize decently, writing books on topics as remote from one another as Irish playwright Samuel Beckett and Ozark folklore collector Vance Randolph.

His documentaries feature a Western Swing fiddler, a maple syrup maker and ginseng digger, and a quilter and rug maker. Cochran's first book, "Vance Randolph: An Ozark Life" (1985) won the American Folklore Society's Elsie Clews Parsons prize for the best folklore study of the year, and "Louise Pound: Scholar, Athlete, Feminist Pioneer" (2009) received the Nebraska Center for the Book's best non-fiction award. "Our Own Sweet Sounds" (1996) and "Singing in Zion" (1999), are studies of Arkansas music. "Samuel Beckett: A Study of the Short Fiction" appeared in 1991. Other books on photographer "Geleve Grice, A Photographer of Note", and the introduction to painter Dorris Curtis', "Come Walk With Me", were published in 2003 and 2004. Cochran's most recent books, "Lights! Camera! Arkansas!" (with Suzanne McCray) and the introduction to Kelly Mulhollan's "True Faith, True Light," were published in 2015.