Winston Napier: In Memoriam

Normally, a post at this time of year would have lots of photos of our graduating seniors at Spring Fling and Graduation, but I have to postpone sharing that joy in order to perform a more solemn task: to celebrate Winston's life at Clark. As most of you know, he passed on Sunday morning, May 18th, just hours before Graduation. Here's Ginger's letter to all present English majors and alums:

May 19, 2008

Dear Clark English majors and graduate students,

On behalf of the department’s faculty and staff, I’m writing you with the sad and shocking news that Professor Winston Napier passed away yesterday morning. Sometime in the past few weeks, he had suffered a head trauma which led to bleeding in the brain. He was taken to the hospital and operated on, but the doctors were not able to save him. We all mourn his passing and cherish the legacy of rigorous intellectual inquiry and good humor that he left us.

I visited Winston at the hospital on Friday, and he said two things that I’d like to share with you. He was concerned about the library books in his apartment. He wanted to be sure those books were returned to Goddard Library to the students could have access to them. He also reflected on his years at Clark and commented, “What a lot of fun it was, what fun.” If he had an impact on your life, you also enlivened him in the classroom and the hallways of Anderson House, affording him tremendous pleasure with your insights and ideas.

Because we have not yet been able to locate any relatives and the Clark community is dispersed for the summer, we are postponing a memorial event until the fall semester. In the meantime, we encourage you to write about your memories of Winston – a teaching moment, a humorous conversation, an insight, what you feel – in an e-mail and send it to Jennifer Plante (jplante@clarku.edu) and Betsy Huang (bhuang@clarku.edu). They will collect your reminiscences, and in a “virtual” memorial service, we will gather them in a special edition of The English Times.

We realize this news may be difficult to process. The Dean of Students, Denise Darrigrand, has offered the services of her office if any of you feel you’d like to talk through your feelings (ddarrigrand@clarku.edu). She will make grief counseling available to any of you who feel you need some help with this. If you’d simply like to talk with a member of the English department, feel free to contact your adviser or a faculty member of your choice. Those of you who are enrolled in a spring course from Professor Napier will be receiving a separate e-mail from Dean Wright or myself with instructions as to how we will handle your grades.

In the meantime, let us hold Winston in our hearts and be grateful for the time we had with him.

Sincerely,

Virginia Vaughan, Chair

We have been receiving tributes from various people, and the Department is going farther than what Ginger suggests above to compile a memorial book containing statements, photos and the like. If you would like to submit a reminiscence, use the links above.

David Pugh (07) has a tribute and comment thread in his blog, Pataphysical Collage, which posts a great photo of Winston.

Thanks for Steve DiRado of Clark's V&PA for the magnificent image of Winston.



--Jay