S.L. Weingart's recollections of his graduate school days in English at Davis (winter '97 issue) prompted me to recall my own experiences there as a graduate student in the early and middle '60s. . . . Like him, I studied under William Van O'Connor.
Davis . . . prepared me to pursue a variety of goals. After more than 30 years, I still love teaching, and next year the University of Delaware Press will publish my fourth book, Nobler in the Mind, a study of the stoic-skeptic dialectic in Renaissance drama.
The arrival of O'Connor, the great Faulkner specialist, at Davis tended to obscure the fact that the English department had strengths in other areas, including the English Renaissance. Beth Homann was a well-established medievalist who had also published on Renaissance literature. Linda Van Norden's work in 17th-century literature is respectfully noted in the early 17th-century volume of the Oxford History of English Literature.
One of my most productive stablemates is Jack Vernon. . . . He and I both arrived as faculty at the University of Utah in 1969. Currently, he is head of creative writing at SUNY Binghamton. . . . Another thriving Aggie Ph.D. in English is Dave Miller '66, who went to Purdue as a Miltonist and eventually became a dean. Kris Paulsen, Ph.D. '68, a former Fulbright Fellow, has taught at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia since 1968 . . . Bob Lougy, Ph.D. '66, has been at Penn State for most of his career . . . Pat Smith, Ph.D. '66, recently retired as chair at the University of San Francisco.
As Weingart observes, Davis was a congenial place, and the department certainly benefited from the leadership of O'Connor, but it was hardly a one-man show. No doubt there were other excellent faculty I haven't even mentioned and other Aggie Ph.D.s in English I don't know who have made their mark. . . , but I thought it worthwhile to give the ones I knew their due.
Geoff Aggeler, Ph.D. '66
Salt Lake City, Utah
