Britain’s Professor Emeritus Louis Afton Turlish, hailed as the perfect teacher “gracious, generous and witty” in his classroom, died on 4 January 2023 at the age of 80.
Dear Members of the Bates Community,
I am writing with the sad news that Professor Emeritus Louis Afton Turlish of England passed away on January 4, 2023 at the age of 80.
He graduated from Geneva College in 1964 with a Ph.D. He received a BA in English Literature from the University of Michigan and was appointed to the Faculty of Bates College as an English Lecturer in 1969. He was promoted to assistant professor in 1970, tenured associate professor in 1977, and full professor in 1984. He served as the head of the department. He retired in the mid-1990s and retired in 2008.
Born and raised in South Philadelphia, Lou was the grandson of an immigrant coal miner and the son of an Acme supermarket baker. His family’s obituary describes his childhood as “a mixture of time spent reading in Philadelphia’s Free Library and mild mischief on the streets.” RockyA combination of curiosity-seeking on a wide range of topics and a somewhat irreverent approach to life constituted the essence of his character. “
Liu is a consummate teacher of English Literature, specializing in 19th century American and Modernist literature written between World War I and World War II, and has taught over 20 different Bates courses. I was. Ulysses“wasteland Afterwards”, from “Major American Writers to 1900” to “Beatniks and Mandarins: A Literary and Cultural History of the 50s in America”.
His late colleague Werner Dymann once described Liu as “one of the most active and talented teachers and scholars on this campus,” and said that its “enthusiastic and dedicated” students were “his inspiration.” One of Lew’s students said that he “breathes life into each piece of literature he presents, instilling in every student a never-lose thirst for knowledge.” I am writing.
He received a Summer Research Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1972 and an Andrew Mellon Fellowship in 1976-77. Writing in his American Literature in 1971, he wrote that Tom Buchanan’s dialogue about the collapse of civilization great gatsby is a reference to Theodore Lothrop Stoddard. rising tide of color, published in 1920. Liu was an early advocate of the possibility of a college junior college. In the 1980s, he directed his program at the same university’s summer Elder Hostel, noting that older students entering Bates College brought “a sort of surprise in their quest for knowledge.”
In Lew’s classroom, “I was always reminded of speculative questions and stories that made evenings and mornings memorable.”
A jazz aficionado, he praised fellow aficionados at a 2007 lunchtime gathering just before his retirement. bates magazine “As scenes from life with a soundtrack by Mingus and Byrd… Philadelphia in the 1950s, beat writers and the golden age of jazz.
When writing Lew’s resignation letter in 2008, Associate Professor of English Sanford Freedman described his colleague’s teaching as “gracious, generous and witty.” In Lew’s classroom, Sanford said: As a faculty colleague, Lou is “a diligent and effective chairman, a good listener (a skill honed by years of experience as a secretary at faculty conferences, no doubt!), and an unwavering sense of stability.” He was in a good mood and was an excellent teacher.”
“Many of the faculty and staff describe how Lou went astray, sometimes in small, almost imperceptible ways, to make him feel valued and welcomed as a colleague and friend,” Sanford said. The prospect of the Red Sox coming summer, which put Henry James, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, etc. We’ll always be grateful to this guy for comparing our prospects (in great detail), but ambiguous.
He is survived by his wife Molly. Daughters Cora and Hannah. two grandchildren; a sister, Susan; several nieces and nephews; and their families.
• To read the full obituary of Lewis Turlish, please visit https://bit.ly/lewis-turlish.
• To read Louis Turlish’s Sanford Friedman retirement citation, visit https://bit.ly/turlish-citation.
