Karl Kroeber (1926 — 2009) was an American literary scholar, known for his writing on American Indian literature. He was the son of Theodora and Alfred L. Kroeber, noted anthropologists. His most recent book was an account of his father's famous work with Ishi: Ishi in Three Centuries.
He was professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University. He wrote widely on literary criticism and its relationship to ecology, traditional literature, and art history.
Kroeber was the brother of the science-fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin. He was father of Paul Kroeber, a linguist; Arthur Kroeber, a journalist and consultant on the Chinese economy; and Katharine Kroeber Wiley, a writer.
Kroeber died of cancer on November 8, 2009 at the age of 83.
Artistry in Native American Myths. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998. ISBN 080322737X
British Romantic Art. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. ISBN 0520054849
Ecological Literary Criticism: Romantic Imagining and the Biology of Mind. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. ISBN 0231100280
Ishi in Three Centuries, with Clifton Kroeber. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003. ISBN 0803227574
Native American Storytelling: A Reader of Myths and Legends.Ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.
Retelling/Rereading: the Fate of Storytelling in Modern Times. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1992 ISBN 0813517656
Romantic Fantasy and Science Fiction New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988. ISBN 0300042418
Romantic Landscape Vision: Constable and Wordsworth. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1975. ISBN 0299067106
Romantic Narrative Art. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1960. OCLC: 305135
Styles in Fictional Structure: The Art of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontė, George Eliot. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971. ISBN 0691061912
Traditional Literatures of the American Indian: Texts and Interpretations, ed., 1981. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Selected essays
"The Evolution of Literary Study", 1883-1983 PMLA, Vol. 99, No. 3, Centennial Issue (May, 1984), pp. 326-339