Selma Jeanne Cohen (September 18, 1920 – December 23, 2005) was a historian, teacher, author, and editor who devoted her career to advocating dance as an art worthy of the same scholarly respect traditionally awarded to painting, music, and literature.
Her doctoral dissertation was on the poetry and religious thought of Gerard Manley Hopkins,[3] who remained a favorite poet for the rest of her life.
During her school years, when a childhood friend began attending the ballet classes of Edna McRae, a respected Chicago teacher, Selma Jeanne went along, although she had no intention of becoming a dancer.
After some months of training, she realized that her small body was not suited to the physical demands of classical ballet technique, and she stopped going to classes.
[4] Upon receiving her doctorate, Cohen joined the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles as a teacher of English literature, but after two years she recognized that her true interest lay in dance.
In this job she wrote numerous reviews of dance performances for that paper as well as reports on sermons delivered from the pulpits in major churches in the city.
It provides an honorarium, round-trip travel funds, and expenses for a dance scholar to give a featured lecture at the association's annual conference.
In a spacious apartment that she shared with her beloved and much-pampered cat, named Giselle, she was often hostess at informal social events attended by friends, colleagues, and students.