John Patrick ("Pat") Hermann (born 17 April 1947) is an American academic who specializes in Old English poetry; he is an emeritus professor[1] at the University of Alabama. He is the author of Allegories of War: Language and Violence in Old English Poetry (1989), and an early proponent of the application of postmodern critical theory to Old English poetry, especially allegorical poems, to investigate the "intersection of spirituality and violence". The book was marked as a "turning-point in criticism of Old English poetry".[2] Hermann is also a well-known critic of the Greek system at the University of Alabama, described by one journal as leading a "one-man crusade...to abolish what he calls an 'apartheid greek system'".[3]