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De Graaf Lecture Series

2024亚洲色吧�25 De Graaf Lecture

Dr. Timothy Morton
Wednesday, February 5 at 7 p.m.
Winants Auditorium in Graves Hall

More details to follow

亚洲色吧 the Lecture Series

We thank his daughter Ruth De Graaf Dirkse and his son-in-law Lamont Dirkse, and the rest of Dr. De Graaf亚洲色吧檚 family, for this gift. Over the years the De Graaf lecture has brought us a procession of luminaries. It was initiated by Thomas Werge of Notre Dame, who had been one of Dr. De Graaf亚洲色吧檚 students; since then we have been privileged to hear from such admired scholars as Lawrence Buell, V. A. Kolve, Jane Tompkins, Suresh Canagarajah, Anne Curzan and Syl Cheney-Coker.

COMPLETE LIST OF DE GRAAF LECTURERS

	2023亚洲色吧�24: Jorge Santos 亚洲色吧淰isualizing the Vietnam War:  Just Memories of the Other Side亚洲色吧�
	2022亚洲色吧�23: Ruben Espinoza 亚洲色吧淪hakespeare and Belonging亚洲色吧�
	2020: Robert Dale Parker "Who Was Jane Schoolcraft? The Story of Bamewawagezhikaquay, the Ojibwe Woman Who Was One of Michigan亚洲色吧檚 Earliest Poets and Fiction Writers"
	2014: Syl Cheney-Coker 亚洲色吧淭he Writer's Other Self: Responsibility in an Age of Anxiety亚洲色吧�
	2013: Anne Curzan, University of Michigan 亚洲色吧淟ocal Language Choices, Broader Social Change亚洲色吧�
	2013: Suresh Canagarajah, Pennsylvania State University 亚洲色吧淓nglish Studies as Creole Scholarship: A Postcolonial Perspective亚洲色吧�
	2012: David S. Reynolds, CUNY Graduate Center 亚洲色吧淢ightier than the Sword: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Battle for America亚洲色吧�
	2011: Margaret Anne Doody, University of Notre Dame 亚洲色吧淔iction and People: Making Up and Hanging Out with Characters亚洲色吧�
	2010: Ken Price, University of Nebraska-Lincoln 亚洲色吧淲alt Whitman in the Digital Age亚洲色吧�
	2009: Stephen Sumida, University of Washington 亚洲色吧淭he Many-Mouthed Bird of Asian American Literature in the Early Twenty-First Century亚洲色吧�
	2008: Terry Eagleton, University of Manchester 亚洲色吧淭he Death of Criticism?亚洲色吧�
	2005: Ed Folsom, University of Iowa 亚洲色吧淲alt Whitman's 1855 Leaves of Grass: What It Hides, What It Reveals亚洲色吧�
	2004: Tom Shippey, St. Louis University 亚洲色吧淔rom Page to Screen: Problems Tolkien Set for Jackson亚洲色吧�
	2003: Jane Tompkins, University of Illinois at Chicago 亚洲色吧淪chool as School: Professional Life as an Opportunity for Personal Growth亚洲色吧�
	2002: V. A. Kolve, University of California, Los Angeles 亚洲色吧淕od-denying Fools: Imagining Atheism in Medieval Religious Art亚洲色吧�
	2000: Lawrence Buell, Harvard University 亚洲色吧淭he Misery of Beasts and Humans: Environmental Justice in Literature and Society亚洲色吧�
	1998: Elizabeth Cross, University of Michigan 亚洲色吧淲hy I Like Serialism, or The Investigative Poetics of a Medieval, Early American and Late 20th Century Writer亚洲色吧�
	1994: Peter S. Hawkins, Yale Divinity School 亚洲色吧淣aming Names: The Art of Memory and the NAMES Project AIDS Quilt亚洲色吧�
	1991: Thomas Werge, University of Notre Dame 亚洲色吧淎merica as Mystical Body: Slavery and Redemption in Lincoln, Stowe and Twain亚洲色吧�

Dr. De Graaf taught at Hope for 44 years, from 1928 to 1972; for 25 of those years he served the department as chair. The son of Dutch immigrants, he grew up in Grand Rapids, where his father ran a small grocery business on Leonard Street and delivered his wares by horse and wagon. But the family believed in education, and Clarence was able to graduate from Calvin College and later to receive his doctorate from the University of Michigan. As a professor and even as department chair he insisted on teaching the full range of courses, from freshman composition on up 亚洲色吧� but his real love was the poetry of Milton. Indeed, we are told that when a future son-in-law politely asked Dr. De Graaf for the hand of his daughter Ruth in marriage, the good professor pointed out that the young man had never taken a course from him, a delinquency to be made up without delay; and it was thus, like Jacob laboring for Rachel, that Lamont Dirkse spent an entire semester reading Paradise Lost.

Dr. De Graaf loved his work at Hope and turned down more than one offer to teach elsewhere. Over the years, he was a major figure in shaping the department: He presided over the enormous influx of ex-G.I.s in 1946, and he was responsible for the hiring of professors whose names are now similarly legendary: Henry ten Hoor, John Hollenbach, Jim Prins. As a teacher he was demanding but fair, and he was generous enough to overlook a few absences when the perch were biting. He was learned, kindly and gratified by his students亚洲色吧� achievements. But there were many things students did not know about Dr. De Graaf. That he was an avid fisherman and hunter, for example. That he enjoyed boating and owned a Chris Craft. That in winter he liked to skate on Lake Macatawa. That he raised dahlias. That he worked tirelessly for his church on Fourteenth Street and also held season tickets for the Grand Rapids Symphony. That he read the Banner and other church papers but also devoured The Atlantic Monthly.

Clarence De Graaf was the best of the old tradition: steadfast, hard-working, free from malice and not given to self-dramatization. As former colleague Dirk Jellema put it, Clarence De Graaf 亚洲色吧渨as a graceful and a gracious and a courtly man. His acute sense of human limitations was balanced by his good humor about human foibles.亚洲色吧� It is right that we honor his memory.