In Memoriam | University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences

In Memoriam
	John G. Cawelti died May 30, 2022, in Louisville. He was a graduate of Oberlin, completed his PhD at University of Iowa, and taught at University of Kentucky, 1980-2000 (A&S Distinguished Professor, 1994). John served in the US Army (Second Lieutenant) and formerly taught at University of Chicago (1957-80.) His research and teaching interests were in American literature, modernism, detective fiction, spy fiction, westerns, science fiction and popular culture. The John G. Cawelti Award is presented annually in his honor by the Popular Culture Association, of which he was founding member. His many books include The Six-Gun Mystique (1970), Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture (1976), The Spy Story (1987), Mystery, Violence, and Popular Culture (2004.)
	John Clubbe died February 24, 2022 in Santa Fe, NM. He did his graduate work at Columbia University and the Sorbonne, and taught at University of Kentucky, 1976-99, having previously taught at Columbia, CUNY, Duke, and University of Munster (Germany). His chief research and teaching interests were in English Romanticism and the Victorians, and he taught a popular course on the works of Wendell Berry. Honors include Guggenheim (1975-76), NEH (1983-84), Visiting scholar, Harvard (1989-90.) Author and editor of books on Thomas Hood, Thomas Carlyle, Byron, and Victorian Literature, he was also author of Cincinnati Observed: Architecture and History (1992). His last publication was Beethoven: The Relentless Revolutionary (W. W. Norton, 2019.) Since retirement, John had lived in Santa Fe with his partner Joan Blythe, and was active in local cultural organizations, including Santa Fe Opera.
	John L. Greenway died on February 14, 2021. He taught at the University of Kentucky for 30 years in the Department of English and the Honors Program. His publications included Golden Horns: The Mythic Imagination and the Nordic Past (University of Georgia Press, 1977) and articles in ANQ, Nineteenth Century Studies, Scandinavian Studies, Stanford University Review, and other journals. His teaching and research interests included Strindberg and the literature of Scandinavia, Dostoevsky and the Russians, nineteenth-century technology, and literature and medicine. Of his lifelong commitment to teaching, he once remarked “Life let me do what I was meant to do."
Larry Swingle	Larry Swingle (1940-2020.) PhD University of Wisconsin-Madison (director Karl Kroeber.) Previously taught at University of Washington. Taught at the University of Kentucky 1975-2005. Research and teaching interests in Nineteenth Century British Literature and Romanticism. Author of The Obstinate Questionings of English Romanticism (LSU Press, 1987), Romanticism and Anthony Trollope (University of Michigan Press, 1990.)
Tom Blues	Tom Blues (1938-2019), PhD University of Iowa. Taught American Literature at University of Kentucky, 1965-1998. Served as Writing Program Director. Author of Mark Twain and the Community (University Press of Kentucky, 1970) and articles on Twain, Frank Norris, Philip Roth and Joseph Heller. After retirement, Tom served for five years as council member on the Lexington Fayette Urban-County Council.
Joan Hartwig	Joan Hartwig (d. 2016.) PhD University of Florida. Taught English Literature at University of Kentucky, 1972-1998. Formerly taught at Florida State University. Author of Shakespeare’s Analogical Scene: Parody as Structural Syntax, University of Nebraska Press, 1984, and Shakespeare’s Tragicomic Vision, Louisiana State University Press, 1972.
Jane Gentry Vance	Jane Gentry Vance (1941-2014.) PhD University of North Carolina. Taught in the Department of English and the Honors Program at University of Kentucky, 1975-2013. UK Alumni Association Great Teacher Award, 1986. Served as Poet Laureate of Kentucky, 2007-08. UK College of Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame inductee, 2013. Author of A Garden in Kentucky (LSU Press, 1995), and Portrait of the Artist as a White Pig (LSU Press, 2006.) Julia Johnson edited New and Collected Poems of Jane Gentry (University Press of Kentucky, 2017.) In 2014, the university posted a memorial tribute.
Donald A. Ringe	Donald A. Ringe, (1923-2014.) PhD Harvard. Served US Army WW II and Korea. Taught American Literature at University of Kentucky, 1965-93. A&S Distinguished Professor, 1988. Taught previously at the University of Michigan (1952-65.) Author of James Fennimore Cooper (1962), Charles Brockden Brown (1966), The Pictorial Mode: Space and Time in the Art of Bryant, Irving and Cooper. (University Press of Kentucky, 1980), and American Gothic: Imagination and Reason in Nineteenth Century Gothic (University Press of Kentucky, 1982.) Served on the Editorial Board of The Writings of James Fenimore Cooper (SUNY edition) and the Board of Editors of American Literature.
Joseph Gardner	Joseph H. Gardner (d. 2013). PhD University of California, Berkeley. Taught at University of Kentucky, 1966-2001. Former Director of Graduate Studies. Teaching and research interests in Victorian Literature and the 1890s. Held executive positions in SAMLA and the Nineteenth Century Studies Association. Author of many articles in scholarly journals including Victorian Studies, Victorian Poetry, Nineteenth Century Literature, Modern Fiction Studies, Modern Philology and Studies in Popular Culture. “Harvard Class of 1960: Joseph Gardner”
Lee Elioseff	Lee Elioseff (d. 2011.) PhD New York University, 1960. Taught at the University of Kentucky 1971-1999. Previously taught at University of Texas (1959-66), Tufts (1966-69), University of Massachusetts (1970). Research and teaching interests in 18th century English literature and culture. Also taught a popular course on Literature and Witchcraft. Author of The Cultural Milieu of Addison’s Literary Criticism (University of Texas Press, 1963.)
John T. Shawcross	John T. Shawcross (1924-2011.) Taught Renaissance Literature at University of Kentucky, 1979-1994. A&S Distinguished Professor, 1990. Previously taught at Rutgers (1963-67), University of Wisconsin (1967-70), The Graduate Center CUNY (1970-79.) Author of Seventeenth Century Poetry (1969), Myths and Motifs in Literature (1973), With Mortal Voice: The Creation of "Paradise Lost" (1982), Paradise Regain'd: "Worthy Not to have Remain'd So Long Unsung" (Duquesne, 1988), Intentionality and the New Traditionalism: Some Liminal Means to Literary Revisionism (Penn State University Press, 1991), John Milton and Influence, (1991), John Milton: Self and the World, (1992). The Uncertain World of Samson Agonistes, (2001). The Arms of the Family: The Significance of John Milton’s Family and Associates (University Press of Kentucky, 2004). Editor of The Complete English Poetry of John Milton, (1963), The Complete Poetry of John Donne, (1967), Milton: The Critical Heritage, 2 vols. (1970-72).
James Baker Hall	James Baker Hall (1935-2009.) Educated at University of Kentucky and Stanford University, where he was a Stegner Fellow. Taught Creative Writing at University of Kentucky, 1974-2004. Poet Laureate of Kentucky (2001.) Author of a novel, Yates Paul: His Grand Flights, His Tootings (1963, 2002), and many volumes of poetry including Stopping on the Edge to Wave (Wesleyan University Press, 1988), Mother on the Other Side of the World (Sarabande, 1999), Praeder’s Letters: A Novel in Verse (Sarabande, 2004), The Total Light Process: New and Selected Poems (University Press of Kentucky, 2004.) Jim Hall’s photographs are included in Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Aperture (1974), Orphan in the Attic (1995), A Spring-Fed Pond (2000) and Tobacco Harvest: An Elegy (2004.)
Aimé Ellis	Aimé Ellis (1969-2009) PhD, University of Texas. Assistant Professor of English at University of Kentucky, 1999-2002. Later was appointed Associate Professor of English at Michigan State University. Research and teaching interests in African American literature and culture. Author of If We Must Die: From Bigger Thomas to Biggie Smalls (Wayne State University Press, 2011.)
Oscar Ronald Dathorne	Oscar Ronald Dathorne (1934-2007). PhD University of Sheffield (1966.) Taught at University of Kentucky, 1987-2000. Research and teaching interests in African, Caribbean and African American literature and culture. Previously taught at University of Miami, University of Wisconsin, Ohio State University, Howard University, University of Ibadan and University of Sierra Leone. Founder of Association of Caribbean Studies and editor of the Journal of Caribbean Studies. Author of The Black Mind: A History of African Literature (1974), African Literature in the Twentieth Century (1976), Dark Ancestor: The Literature of the Black Man in the Caribbean (1981), In Europe's Image: The Need for American Multiculturalism (1994), Imagining the World: Mythical Belief Versus Reality in Global Encounters (1994), Asian Voyages: Two Thousand Years of Constructing the Other (1996), Worlds Apart: Race in the Modern Periods (2001.) Dathorne also wrote several volumes of poetry and three novels, Dumplings in the Soup (1963), The Scholar Man (1964), and Dele’s Child (1986.)
Guy Davenport	Guy Davenport (1927-2005.) PhD Harvard. Rhodes scholar (Merton College, Oxford, 1948-50). Served US Army 1950-52. John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, 1990. Taught at University of Kentucky, 1963-1990. A&S Distinguished Professor, 1977. Taught formerly at Haverford College. Author of many works including Tatlin! Six Stories (1974), Da Vinci’s Bicycle (1979), Eclogues (1981), Apples and Pears and Other Stories (1984), The Drummer of the Eleventh North Devonshire Fusiliers (1990), The Death of Picasso: New and Selected Writing (2003), and The Davenport Reader, ed. Erik Reece (Counterpoint, 2013.) “Guy Davenport Dies at 77,” New York Times.
Stephen Manning	Stephen Manning (1930-2003.) PhD Johns Hopkins University. Taught at University of Kentucky 1970-2000. Former Department Chair, Director of Composition, and Director of Graduate Studies. Previously taught at University of Colorado and University of Virginia. Research and teaching interests in Medieval Literature. Author of Wisdom and Number: Towards a Critical Appraisal of the Middle English Religious Lyric (University of Nebraska Press, 1962.)
Joseph Bryant	Joseph Allen Bryant, Jr. (1919-1999.) PhD Yale, 1948. Professor of English at University of Kentucky, 1971-1989. Former Department Chair. A&S Distinguished Professor, 1986. Previously taught at University of Kentucky (Instructor), 1948-50, Vanderbilt (1948-56), University of the South (1956-59), Duke (1959-61), UNC Greensboro (1961-66), Nantes, France (Fulbright, 1965-66) and Syracuse (1967-71). Author of Hippolyta’s View: Shakespeare’s Plays (1961), Eudora Welty (1968), The Compassionate Satirist: Ben Jonson and His Imperfect World (1972), Shakespeare and the Uses of Comedy (1986), Understanding Randall Jarrell (1986), Twentieth Century Southern Literature (1997.)