GW English Alums on the Move: CJ Powell

GW English Alum CJ Powell

GW English Alum CJ Powell: "Two of the investment banking managing directors in Project Finance with whom I worked had Bachelor of Arts degrees in Art History and Dance"

Like a lot of our department's majors, CJ Powell (she was then CJ Hall) headed for New York City with an interest in writing and editing.  Her journey through the worlds of art and business is an inspiring and instructive one.  She shares it with us here.

 First, tell us something about your time in the department.  You were a student of David McAleavey's.  Were you an English major?  Did you focus on Creative Writing?  Were there other professors who made an impression on you?

I enrolled at GWU in the Fall of 1979 to study Political Science, win an internship on the Hill, and change the world. Early Poli-Sci course requirements -- Intro to Statistical Social Science;  Intro to Computer Programming;  Scope & Methodology of Political Science -- dampened my enthusiasm, while I was energized by the English Department offerings of  Intro to Creative Writing and The Short Story.  In the Spring of my sophomore year I declared my major in American Literature.  It wasn’t a completely unexpected turn of events.  I had always written short stories and poetry and was the editor of my high school poetry magazine.  I loved being part of the poetry crowd on campus, participating in open poetry and fiction readings in the 5^th Floor lounge of the Marvin Center every Friday evening and hanging out with other writers.   I had the honor of being a member of the editorial staff for Volume 1 of  the G.W. Review’s 1980 founding issue, associate editor for fiction and poetry for Volume 2, and editor-in-chief for Volumes 3 and 4.  The campus literary magazine featured a Po’ Biz Calendar with listing of poetry and fiction activities in the DC area that kept me active in the thriving DC literary scene.  My writing appeared in campus publications The GW Hatchet, The Current, Wooden Teeth and George Mason University’s The George Mason Review.  During my years at GWU, a full-time employee could take classes for free.  I landed a secretarial position in the School of Business Administration and finished my studies tuition free in 1984 with a Bachelor of Arts in American Literature.  I obtained the American Literature degree through a Proseminar in American Literature that was offered at the time.  David McAleavey taught the creative writing classes I took, A.E. Claeyssens taught the Writing Fiction – The Novel course, and Robert Ganz taught American poetry.  These and all the other professors in the English Department deepened my knowledge, love and respect for American Literature.

You have clearly had an impressive career in banking.  What did you study after you graduated from GW?  Were you ever tempted to study further in the humanities?

My first job out of college was as a production assistant for The Living Stage, a non-profit professional improvisational theater company that was part of Arena State for over 30-years.  I responded to an ad in The Washington City Newspaper, and my GWU BA was an important credential in winning the position. Under the direction of Robert Alexander, Living Stage performed with men, women, children, teens, prisoners, disabled and disadvantaged people from all walks of life, teaching the importance of self-expression.  I was privileged to be a part of that artistic team for three years.  After I left Living Stage, I decided to return to my literary roots and enrolled in the 6-week Radcliffe Publishing Course.  I can’t remember who told me about the Radcliffe Publishing Course, but I’m very grateful to have learned about it.  It turned out to be an important credential; it got me both a job and an apartment in New York. My roommate-to-be previously took the course and was working in publishing.  She posted an ad for a roommate on the bulletin board at Radcliffe, knowing new graduates would be flocking to NYC.  She had a two bedroom 4th floor walk-up in Park Slope.  I called her and rented it sight unseen.  I was able to land a job as an editorial assistant at G.P. Putnam’s Sons. The position was advertised in The New York Times and the editor who hired me was familiar with The Publishing Course, and when she saw I was a GWU grad, she remarked, “Good school!”   It was a refrain I was to hear throughout my career.  I worked with Lisa Wager, editor to a variety of writers: detective, fiction, self-help, romance.  I read unsolicited scripts, did some copy editing and maintained her books’ production schedules.  After some time working for a publishing house, I found my sympathies for writers growing, and was able to work instead for a literary editor, the great Elaine Markson at Elaine Markson Literary Agency in Greenwich Village.  My good friend Lisa Callamaro, whom I’d met at Radcliffe, worked there and had told me about the literary assistant position. Lisa has since opened her own film and television agency in Beverly Hills.  I had fantastic exposure to all kinds of writers and literary events in and around the city.  Unfortunately, the pay as editorial and literary assistant was so low I had to get a second job to afford life in NYC, even sharing an apartment.  While I enjoyed moonlighting at Shakespeare & Co. Bookstore on the Upper West Side, a job advertised in The Village Voice, I grew tired of feeling overworked and poor.   My own writing had long since fallen away under the strain of two jobs.  I decided to look for a better paying position.

  In what ways did the literature grounding you got at GW contribute to your further education, and then your career?  Was there a big disconnect between literature and business?

In the early nineties in NYC, I figured the highest paying fields were investment banking and law.  I had a friend who worked as a paralegal for a NYC law firm and had heard stories about the long hours and crazed attorneys, so I went for something in finance. It was never my intent to sell out.  I hoped to find a decent paying 9-5 job that would finally leave me time to write. I took a job as a secretary at First Boston (the company has since merged with Credit Suisse).  While the position paid substantially more than the two jobs I’d been working combined, I remember my father being very disappointed that I wasn’t using my college degree, although I’m sure it was an important factor in being hired.  And he was right; none of the other secretaries had degrees.  However, I was surprised and delighted to find myself working with the highly intelligent and cultured men and women who bought and read the books, paid for the theater tickets, and talked about literature, art, history.  My characteristic hard work, writing, and organizational skills were very much appreciated. I was given the opportunity to work on reviewing, doing graphics and editing presentations.  After a couple of years I moved to a position at UBS (also through a newspaper ad), in the investment banking project finance department, my GWU degree once again keeping me in good stead.  Project finance is the financing of power plants, mining projects, infrastructure like toll roads and airports, telecommunications, and the projects are all over the globe.  I found the subject matter of the work varied and interesting and have worked in Project Finance ever since.  I found that, by taking on administrative projects that no one else wanted to do, I gained recognition and moved from secretary, to administrative assistant, to project manager, to associate.  I was able to work in the portfolio administration group where I was introduced to the voluminous documentation necessary for project finance deals.  I loved reading the credit and agency agreements, piecing together the operational and business duties of the banking work like a jigsaw puzzle. I worked for UBS for 7 years and in the last year my manager recommended me for credit training, a fantastic opportunity.  There was a reorganization at UBS and some of the managers I worked for moved to Deutsche Bank.  They looked me up and I moved to DB as an assistant treasurer in project finance doing portfolio administration.  Once at DB, I moved within the company and learned more about loan operations and management.  I moved to the  Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas project finance team where I became expert in reading documentation and eventually became Vice President and team leader of their transaction management team, responsible for negotiating and implementing new deals.  I’ve been at Citibank for the last four years, in their corporate trust shop, reviewing documentation and implementation of new deals as they relate to agency roles.  So many of the people I work with have a business or finance background, are expert in spreadsheets and analysis, and would rather poke a stick in their eyes than read a 400 page credit agreement word for word.  Basically, for the last several years I have a job where I read for a living, and I love it. 

What advice do you have for our majors who may be thinking of entering the business world?

Don’t be afraid to move around and try new paths.  I would never have as much appreciation for where I am today if I hadn’t tried different careers.  If you really have your heart set on doing creative work, it’s better to work hard and struggle than to work in a corporate environment for 75% of your life and think you’ll have brainpower left for imagination.  Business needs creative thinkers who can problem solve.  

 Is there anything in particular you miss about GW?  About college in general?

I loved being at a university that was in an urban environment, where you could experience the culture of the city, with professors like David McAleavey to guide you.  I loved the nurture and support of the Poetry Crowd, Lilian Weber, Ron Weber, Richard Flynn, A.L. Nielsen, Hugh Walthall, Paul Brucker and many others.  While I’m happy with my story and where I am today, I think if I was going to do anything differently, it would be to understand and appreciate the importance of being in a creative community.  I think if I had continue to seek out other people who were working to write, and tell stories, I would have been able to take my writing further than I did.  At the end of the day, I don’t think I had the courage and devotion for the sacrifice necessary to live the life of a writer, but the background I experienced provided me with the skills that have made me a success in where I am today.

A Note from the Chair

Professor McRuer in the late night sun
of Copenhagen, Denmark

August does have a way of sneaking up on us!  It's hard to believe that classes at The George Washington University start three weeks from today, on Monday, August 31.  Our faculty, as usual, has been hard at work over the summer.  We've been in England, Scotland, India, New Zealand, Germany, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey and numerous other places over the past few months.  Most of this travel is connected to research projects that we are working on or conferences we are attending; the GW English Department faculty is often in hot demand for plenary talks, keynote presentations, and workshops.  We hope to fill you in on some of our summer projects and travels in the coming months.

We're getting ready for what promises to be another noteworthy academic year.  Indeed, the faculty will meet again in late August for our second annual retreat to talk about all the ways we hope to make Academic Year 2015-2016 one of our best years ever for our undergraduate majors, our graduate program, our alums, our colleagues across the university, and our friends in the community.  It's my final year as Department Chair and so I am especially committed to working hard to make this a memorable one.  Alums, please remember that we love to tell your stories here; Professor Margaret Soltan remains the alumni liaison for this blog for the coming semester and will be very happy to hear of your success and adventures and feature them here.

The loss of our dear friend and colleague James A. Miller has been very painful for our department and for our colleagues in American Studies and Africana Studies, where Professor Miller also held appointments.  We look forward to gathering with the GW and Washington, DC communities on September 11 for "A Celebration of the Work of James A. Miller," which will be the department's first major event for the year.  A previous blog post here provides you with the schedule for the day; please spread the word about this important event.

Later in September, the annual lecture for the Dean's Scholars in Shakespeare will be delivered by Professor Jean Howard of Columbia University.  Professor Howard's lecture is titled "Countering the Lucrece Effect: Performing Rape on the Early Modern Stage."  GW Creative Writing will host this year's Jenny McKean Moore Writer-in-Washington, Kseniya Melnik, author of Snow in May; she will read in September as part of the Jenny McKean Moore Reading Series.  GW Professor Ann Romines retired this past May, and a panel, lecture, and performance on October 2 will celebrate her many years of service to the department and University.  The GW Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute and the GW Digital Humanities Institute will again have a full range of programming in the year ahead.  Remember that our calender (to the right) will have all the details for upcoming GW English events.

I urge you to consider using the CONTRIBUTE link at right, and designating your gift to the Department of English. The Department continues to thrive; as many readers of this blog know, the Chair has to submit a Departmental Annual Report each year.  One of the pleasures of that report is noting the incredible productivity of my colleagues, who are always inspiring to me.   Part of the report lists selected publications that have appeared over the past year (from June 1, 2014 - May 31, 2015); below my signature line here, take a look at that section of the report -- and of course feel free to read the creative work and scholarship we've been generating.  I thank you in advance for your generosity and your continued support of all we do.

Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter (our plan is to be much more active on Twitter in the year ahead).  And please stop by and see me in the main office of the Department.

Yours truly,
Robert McRuer
Professor and Chair

Selected Publications from the GW Department of English, 2014-2015:

Books:

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Stone: An Ecology of the Inhuman, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015. David T. Mitchell with Sharon L. Snyder, The Biopolitics of Disability: Neoliberalism, Ablenationalism, and Peripheral Embodiment, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2015. Gayle Wald, It's Been Beautiful: "Soul!" and Black Power Television, Durham: Duke University Press, 2015.

Edited Collections and Special Issues:

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, ed., Inhuman Nature, punctum books, 2014.

Alexa Huang and Elizabeth Rivlin, eds., Shakespeare and the Ethics of Appropriation, London: Palgrave, 2014.

Alexa Huang and Tom Bishop, eds., special section on “Digital Shakespeares,” Shakespearean International Yearbook 14, London: Ashgate, 2014.

Robert McRuer and Merri Lisa Johnson, eds., Cripistemologies. Special Double Issue (published as two consecutive issues) of Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies 8.2, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2014.

Selected Essays:

Jennifer Chang, “Pastoral and the Problem of Place in Claude McKay's Harlem Shadows,” A Companion to the Harlem Renaissance, ed. Cherene Sherrard-Johnson, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015.

Jennifer Chang, “Statement of Purpose,” The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind, ed. Claudia Rankine, Beth Loffreda, and Max King Cap, Albany: Fence Books, 2015, 53-59.

Patricia P. Chu, “Bildung and the Asian American Bildungsroman,” The Routledge Companion to Asian American and Pacific Islander Literature, ed. Rachel C. Lee, New York and Oxford: Routledge, 2014, 403-414.

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, “Geophilia, or the Love of Stone,” Continent 4.2 (2015).

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Foreward to Storied Matter: Material Ecocriticism, ed. Serenella Iovino and Serpil Oppermann, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014, ix-xii.

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, “Queer Crip Sex and Critical Mattering,” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 21.1 (2015): 153-162.

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Karl Steel, “Race, Travel, Time, Heritage,” postmedieval 6.1 (2015): 98-110.

Kavita Daiya, “Refugees, Gender and Secularism in South Asian Literature and Cinema,” Representations of War, Migration and Refugehood: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, New York: Routledge, 2014, 263-280.

Daniel DeWispelare, “Dissidence in Dialect: Ann Wheeler’s Westmorland Dialogues,” Studies in Romanticism 54.1 (Spring 2015): 101-126.

Holly Dugan, “Seeing Smell,”  The Senses in Early Modern England, 1558-1660, ed. Jacqueline Wilson and Simon Smith, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015.

Holly Dugan, “The Senses in Literature: Renaissance Poetry and the Paradox of Perception,” Cultural History of the Senses, Vol. III: The Renaissance, ed. Herman Roodenburg, London: Bloomsbury, 149-167.

Jonathan Hsy, “Translation Failure: The TARDIS, Cross-Temporal Language Contact, and Medieval Travel Narrative,” The Language of Doctor Who: From Shakespeare to Alien Tongues, eds. Jason Barr and Camille D. G. Mustachio, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014, 109-123.

Jonathan Hsy, “Comment from the Field: Composing Disability: Diagnosis, Interrupted, George Washington University, April 2014,” Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies 8.3 (2014): 355-360.

Jonathan Hsy, “Disability,” Cambridge Companion to the Body in Literature, eds. David Hillman and Ulrika Maude, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 24-40.

Jonathan Hsy, “Co-Disciplinarity,” Medievalism: Key Critical Terms, Studies in Medievalism, eds. Elizabeth Emery and Richard Utz, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2014, 43-51.

Jonathan Hsy and Candace Barrington, “Global Chaucers,” Medieval Afterlives in Contemporary Culture, ed. Gail Ashton, London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2015, 147-156. Alexa Huang, “Screening Dutch Formosa in 2000: Taiwan as China’s Renegade Province in Wu Ziniu’s The Sino-Dutch War 1661,” Scenes from Dutch Formosa: Staging Taiwan’s Colonial Past, ed. Llyn Scott, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2014, 153-160. Alexa Huang, “Meditation on Hamlet,” Man Ray-Human Equations: A Journey from Mathematics to Shakespeare, eds. Wendy Grossman and Edouard Sebline, Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2015, 174-175. Alexa Huang and Angelica Duran, “Mo Yan’s Work and the Politics of Literary Humor,” Mo Yan in Context: Nobel Laureate and Global Storyteller, West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2014, 153-166. Jennifer James, “Looking,” Special “Teaching about Ferguson” forum, Feminist Studies 41.1 (2015): 123-127.

Robert McRuer, “Normal,” Keywords for American Cultural Studies, 2^nd ed, eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler, New York: New York University Press, 2014, 184-187.

Robert McRuer and Merri Lisa Johnson, “Cripistemologies: Introduction,” Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies 8.2 (2014): 127-147.

Robert McRuer and Merri Lisa Johnson, “Introduction: Cripistemologies and the Masturbating Girl,” Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies 8.3 (2014): 251-261.

Ann Romines, "The Double Bind of Southern Food in Willa Cather's Sapphira and the Slave Girl," Writing in the Kitchen:  Essays on Southern Literature and Foodways, eds. David A. Davis and Tara Powell, Jackson:  University of Mississippi Press, 2014, 86-104.

Ann Romines, "Writing Her First Home Pasture:  Willa Cather on Her Virginia Environment," The Willa Cather Newsletter and Review 57(Winter-Spring 2015): 23-27.

Ormond Seavey, "Literature," The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of the American Enlightenment, vol. 2, ed. Mark G. Spencer, New York and London: Bloomsbury, 2015, 655-660.

Evelyn Jaffe Schreiber, "Personal and Cultural Memory in 'A Mercy,'" Toni Morrison: Memory and Meaning, ed. Adrienne Seward and Justine Tally, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 80-92.

Ayanna Thompson, “Racial Authenticy: The Tension between Production and Reception in the Shakespeare Archive,” Shakespeare Bulletin 23.4 (2014): 683-686.

Ayanna Thompson, “Othello/YouTube,” Shakespeare on Screen: Othello, ed. Sarah Hatchuel and Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Ayanna Thompson, “Race,” The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 455-456.

Ayanna Thompson, “Introduction,” The House That Will Not Stand, New York and London: Methuen Drama, 2014, xvii-xxii.

Ayanna Thompson, “Afterword: Remixing as Performance,” Upstart, Special Issue: Out of Sequence: The Sonnets Remixed.

Ayanna Thompson, “Julius Caesar and Popular Culture,” Luminary Julius Caesar iPad Application, Folger Luminary Shakespeare, 2014.

Tara Ghoshal Wallace, “Historical Redgauntlet: Jacobite Delusions and Hanoverian Fantasies,” Romanticism 21.2 (2015): 145-159.

Selected Articles:

Alexa Huang, “Thou art translated! How Shakespeare went viral,” The Conversation (23 April 2015).

Thomas Mallon, Bookends, New York Times Book Review (Prof. Mallon contributes regularly to Bookends—9 contributions this year alone).

Thomas Mallon, “Restless Realism,” Review Essay for The New Yorker.

Faye Moskowitz, "Wisdom for the Next Generation," Moment Magazine.

Lisa Page, Interview with Achy Obejas on Immigrant Voices: 21^st Century Voices, Origins Magazine (Fall 2014).

Selected Creative Non-Fiction:

Thomas Mallon, “Still Here!” O! The Oprah Magazine (November 2014): 145.

Selected Poems:

Jennifer Chang, “The World,” New England Review 36.1 (2015).

Jennifer Chang, “Whoso List to Hunt” and “There Are Too Many Other Birds to Write About,” Salt Hill 34 (2015). Jonathan Hsy, “The Poem That Should Not Exist,” Upstart: A Journal of English Renaissance Studies (11 August 2014). David McAleavey, “Lost in the Rough,” “Off again, on again,” “So is it not,” and “Surge,” Adirondack Review. David McAleavey, “Mystical,” “Sweater here,” “Thought-provoking songs,” and “Today a magnolia stump,” Cricket Online Review 10.2 David McAleavey, “War games,” Passager 58 (Winter 2015): 43. David McAleavey, “Loose crown for Claude McKay,” Gargoyle 61: 132-138. David McAleavey, “Summer of love,” Entasis 5 (2014). David McAleavey, “Big ifs,” The Evansville Review 24 (2014): 54. David McAleavey, “Balancing Act,” Upstart: A Journal of English Renaissance Studies (11 August 2014).

Jane Shore, “Mom’s Grand Baroque,” Moment Magazine 39.6 (Nov./Dec. 2014): 31.

Film/Documentary:

David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder, “Disabled People and the Holocaust.”

A Celebration of the Work of James A Miller

Professor James A. Miller

The Departments of English and American Studies and the Program in Africana Studies invite you to join us for "A Celebration of the Work of James A. Miller," on Friday, September 11, from 2-6 PM.  This event will be held in the Jack Morton Auditorium (805 21st Street NW).

Professor James Miller (1944-2015) was a GW Professor of English, American Studies, and Africana Studies.  His work focused on a wide range of topics in African American literary and cultural studies across  the 20^th and 21^stcenturies.  Professor Miller was the author of Remembering Scottsboro: The Legacy of an Infamous Trial (Princeton University Press, 2009), as well as numerous articles and volumes focused on African American history, literature, music, film, and theory.

"A Celebration of the Work of James A. Miller" will begin with a panel of invited scholars.  The afternoon will continue with a reading by Professor Edward P. Jones, and conclude with a reception featuring the jazz ensemble Witney's Swing N Gin.  The event is free and open to the public; it is made possible by the Wang Endowment in the Department of English.

2-3:30 PM Panel: The Work of James A. Miller

Barbara Foley (English and American Studies, Rutgers-Newark), “Not a Cocktail Party: The New Negro Movement and the Left”

Farah Jasmine Griffin (English, Comparative Literature, and African American Studies, Columbia), “Reading, Justice, and the African American Novel”

Paul Gardullo (Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture), “From Slave Ships to the Mothership: Missions into Expanding ‘The Archive’ at the Smithsonian’s NMAAHC”

3:30-4 PM Break

4-4:45 PM A Reading by Edward P. Jones (Creative Writing and English, GWU)

5-6 Jazz Reception featuring Witney's Swing N Gin

Transnational Queer Film Studies Returns Fall 2015

GW Students (and students in the consortium!): English 3980W, which is co-sponsored by the Department of English and the Short-Term Study Abroad Office, will be offered again in Fall 2015.  Interested students will need to register through an application process that can be accessed using this link to  GW Study Abroad.

This unique course has run every Fall Semester (except Fall 2014) since 2008.  It is run in collaboration with Charles University in Prague and includes one week in attendance at the Mezipatra International Queer Film Festival.  This course fulfills a WID requirement and can count towards the LGBT/Sexuality Studies Minor.  Students who are alums of the class often identify it as transformative and as one of the best courses they take while at GW.  It has been featured several times in this blog and in the GW Hatchet; the first Hatchet story is accessible here.

This is an upper-level undergraduate course, but some graduate students have taken the course for graduate credit with special permission (and extra assigments).

Here is the full course description:

Queer Filmmaker Todd Haynes addresses
Mezipatra (and GW students)

The interdisciplinary field that has come to be called "queer" studies over the past two decades has always concerned itself with questions of representation: how are, for instance, lesbians and gay men, or transgendered people, represented in film, in novels, and in other forms of media?  As the field has developed, these question of representation have increasingly been linked to other, complex questions involving political economy, globalization, and transnationalism: in what ways have LGBTQ people been incorporated into contemporary nation-states? What identities and desires threaten "the nation" as it is currently (and variously) materialized in our world?  How have identities such as "gay" and "lesbian" circulated globally?  How have those recognizable minority identities come into contact and conflict with other ways of identifying around non-normative desires?  Have those identities at times functioned imperialistically, especially as "gay tourism" has become a recognizable part of global capitalism?

Conversely, what kinds of unexpected alliances have been shaped across borders as queer movements have globalized?  How have these movements theorized race, gender, class, and ability; what connections have been made with other movements organized around identity?  This course will thus consider how questions of queer representation, particularly in film, converge with questions of queer globalization(s). The majority of the course takes place on GW campus, but includes an international component in November that requires students to travel to Prague, Czech Republic. While abroad, students will attend the Mezipatra Prague International LGBTQ Film Festival and attend class sessions co-taught by Professor Katerina Kolarova from Charles University's department of Gender Studies. Students will also be able to engage in discussions with Charles University students who will also be participating in these overseas class lectures.

Please direct any questions to Professor Robert McRuer: rmcruer@gwu.edu

In Memoriam: James A. Miller

Professor James A. Miller
in his English Department office

The English Department is mourning the loss of Professor Jim Miller, our colleague, teacher, mentor, and friend, who died on June 19, after a year-long battle with cancer.  Jim was a highly-respected scholar and beloved teacher in English, American Studies, and Africana Studies whose work focused on African American literary and cultural studies across the 20^th and 21^stcenturies, often with a specific focus on the Washington, DC, area.

The Washington Post notes the passing of prominent Washington-area figures; that obituary can be accessed here.  The Post writes:

'Dr. Miller was born in Providence, R.I. He joined the GWU faculty in 1998 after having taught at the University of South Carolina and at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. At GWU he taught a course on “Black Culture in the Nation’s Capital.” He lectured often to D.C. public-school classes at the School Without Walls.

He was author of a 2009 book, “Remembering Scottsboro,” about the 1931 trial and conviction of nine black youths accused of raping two white women in Scottsboro, Ala. He had written chapters in books about Washington and had reviewed contemporary African American literature in The Washington Post."

Professor Miller's 2011 interview
with BookTV GWU

In 2011, Jim gave a BookTV GWU interview on Remembering Scottsboro.  You can view this interview here.

Jim received his A.B. in English from Brown in 1966 and his Ph.D. in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1976, with a dissertation on “The Struggle for Identity in the Major Works of Richard Wright.”  He taught popular courses at GW on Wright, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison and others (and, as GW Today notes in a piece accessible here, while an undergraduate at Brown, Jim had met Ellison himself).  In 2009, Jim was a Fulbright Scholar in the Department of English/School of Literature and Language Studies at the University of The Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.  He received the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Award from GW in 2008 and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching District of Columbia Professor of the Year Award in 2002.  In 2012, he received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Buffalo’s Alumni Association Award.  At the time of his death, Jim was completing a new project on trans-Atlantic Black cultural production, studying musicians and writers with connections to South Africa, England, and the United States. 

We want to honor these many accomplishments, of course, but Jim's colleagues and friends have also been searching for the words to describe what a gentle, kind, thoughtful man he was.  We feel his loss profoundly:  everyone in the English Department ended up in Jim's office at some point, because everyone valued his advice, his wisdom, his quick wit.  Rest in Peace, Jim Miller.  We love you and we miss you.