Novak retires after 39 years at UCLA

  BRIDGET O’BRIEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Max
Novak, with his wife behind him, laughs at a speech made
by a former student at a dinner in his honor Sunday.

By Lisa Klassen
Daily Bruin Contributor

After 39 years of teaching and a distinguished career as a
literary scholar, Professor Maximillian Novak took the position of
professor emeritus on Saturday during a dinner held in his honor at
the James E. West Alumni Center.

Novak’s retirement marks the end of a long career at UCLA.
He received both his undergraduate degree from UCLA in 1952 as well
as his English doctorate in 1958. Although he attended Oxford
University in England and earned a Doctorate of Philosophy there in
1961, he returned to UCLA in 1962 to teach literature.

According to his students, Novak is an inspirational
teacher.

“Max was the finest of mentors and also of friends,”
said Felicity Nussbaum, one of Novak’s colleagues and former
post-doctorate students. “He was always very engrossed in his
studies, but he always had time to encourage his students in
writing and publication.”

Atara Stein, one of Novak’s former students and current
instructor at California State University, Fullerton said Novak has
an “incredible sense of humanity,” and inspired many of
his students.

“He was an influence to many and an exemplar of the
perfect professor ““ full of knowledge and a little
absent-minded,” she said.

Novak, however, said he didn’t always find teaching
students easy or “perfect.”

During his first year as a teaching assistant at the university,
Novak’s class constantly engaged in discussions and in
exploring new ideas, and set the example for how students should
participate in classroom talk.

But the next year, the students hardly said a word.

“That’s when you learn how to to teach,” he
said with a laugh. “When you have to learn what to do in a
class where students don’t talk.”

According to his colleagues, Novak is a distinguished literary
scholar, as well as a professor.

“He is one of the most famous (Daniel) Dafoe scholars out
there,” said Fred Burwick, a fellow English professor,
“which is the result of a long and distinguished
career.”

Throughout his career, Novak has dedicated his life to
understanding the works of Dafoe, a prominent early 18th century
novelist who wrote such classics as “Robinson
Crusoe.”

Dafoe’s personal life as well as his exploration of social
and political aspects of society in his novels interested Novak
into looking at literary work through a social and historical
perspective, a view few people had approached at that time.

“He was a very interesting man,” Novak said.
“He wrote about the entire age, from birth control to the
price of corn, from the Tsar in Russia to Louis XIV.”

Known among literary experts as a predecessor to the realist and
naturalist writers of the 19th century, Dafoe explored the inherent
conflict between civilization and nature, according to Novak. And
even today, people can relate to this struggle.

In movies like “Castaway,” for example, filmmakers
explore the idea of going back to a simpler time, discovering who
you are without the distraction of civilization, he said.

In addition to Dafoe’s overall appeal to today’s
society, Novak said he can also relate to the author in a more
personal matter.

“I think he was a person who had a very broad sympathy for
the plight of the poor and anger at the way in which the wealthy
oppressed the poor,” he said. “Basically, that appeals
very much to my own political sympathies.”

Novak has written three books about Dafoe and has just completed
a fourth book titled “Daniel Dafoe: Master of Fiction,”
which will be published in March. He has also edited several works
by Dafoe and has had papers published in literary journals.

Colleagues like Michael Seidel, a long time friend and fellow
professor at Columbia University, attributed these accomplishments
to his dedication and vast amount of knowledge.

“I have never known someone who loves philosophy and
writing more than he does,” Seidel said. “He is the
absolute best of our kind.”

The publication of his fourth book marks the end of a 20-year
project.

“I remember he’d be working on the book when I was a
little kid,” said Daniel, one of Novak’s two sons.
“I’m really happy and proud to see it done.”

Novak encouraged his children to go to college. Like their
father, his two sons and one daughter graduated from UCLA.
Novak’s wife Estelle also attended UCLA and earned a
doctorate in English.

“We’re just a UCLA family,” Estelle said.
“We’ve all been here. I guess we liked it so much, we
couldn’t leave.”

Though no longer an active professor, Novak plans to continue
his research and writing and hopes to actively pursue his studies
of Dafoe

And he doesn’t intend to stop teaching ““ an
experience that sometimes exemplifies how themes from the novels he
teaches still remain relevant.

Novak said in the recent past, students in one of his
undergraduate seminars conducted a discussion on how extensive
modernization should be in the world.

“It’s a fundamental questions on how we should live
our lives,” he said. “The students really expressed
what they thought. It was one of the best discussions I’ve
ever had.”

With reports from Dharshani Dharmawardena, Daily Bruin Senior
Staff.