H. Bruce Franklin
From Palo Alto Wiki
H. Bruce Franklin was a radical left-wing professor at Stanford University during the Vietnam War.
[edit] Career in academia
Now a professor of English and American Studies at Rutgers University, Franklin was a Melville scholar when he came to teach at Stanford University in 1961. He left in 1964, but came back to teach there again from 1965 to 1972. An avowed Maoist and outspoken critic of American foreign policy at the height of the Vietnam War, he increasingly drew the ire of the Stanford administration for his participation in political confrontations over Stanford's involvement with the military and industrial interests seen as supporting the War. During the Spring of 1971 he encouraged students to go on strike. In addition to teaching at Stanford, he taught one year at Venceremos College in Redwood City, which was politically aligned with Venceremos Brigade, a Maoist group that advocated the overthrow of U.S. imperialism. As the faculty face of the Far Left, Franklin's confrontational methods eventually paved the way for his leaving Stanford in 1973.
In addition to his writings on Melville, Franklin has written on Science Fiction, Daniel Ellsberg, the Vietnam War, and more recently even a book on menhaden, which he dubs "the most important fish in the sea."
