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A festschrift is a strange discourse – written
about a person for readers who may not know the person at all, and written by
writers who know that person quite well. Sometimes the language is tributary, sometimes inspirational,
sometimes afterthoughts, sometimes effects, and sometimes results. So
since it is such an odd beast of a form, I thought it would probably be worth
while to try to situate who John Brantley is – at least for myself
if not for readers who may not know him.
When I first met John Brantley, I had just
finished my Ph.D. and was making the rounds at the last easy series of
interviews at the MLA in Denver in 1970.I met him just
after having trashed an interview for Composition Director at an
unnamed western State University where the interview committee, all tweedy and circumspect, had told me
somewhat peremptorily that all they wanted out of a composition
director was someone who would “see that the TA’s went to classes
with their flies zipped.” A
bit ticked at their condescension, I indicated to them I wasn’t sure
I was the person for such a job since I often went to class with my
fly unzipped. Of course,
the interview went down hill from there, and I left rather smugly despairing to go on to the next interview, which
happen to be with John Brantley, for a job a University in my home
state, from which I had been trying to escape for six years.
He met me, at the door of his room in stocking
feet, complaining of how the interview process was basically inhumane
and too hard on one physically to really be tolerated, and then he proceeded to talk to me like I was a
person he had known all of his life -- none of those pseudo probing
questions that some committees think they have to ask. He had read my
vitae, my letter and my recommendations and had some sense of who I
was. He was, I thought, probably
overly country and a bit coy with his repeated folkisms, but I sensed
a genuine person interested in me as a potential colleague; so I felt
very much at home with him, and that position went toward the head of
my list.
Later when I interviewed on campus, the country
role was still pronounced but more characteristic of him than the
place. Also given the members of the department and how they
interacted, it
would obviously a happy ship, and I thought I could do well there.
People were encouraged to follow their own literary instincts
and to develop a research and teaching method that suited one’s
notion. In short, it was an ideal place for me, and over the years,
John stayed as Chair and became a friend. As Chair of a small but
developing English Department, John Brantley was one of those people
who took the notion of administration more or less literally; it
really was a ministry to him. Not
that he did not have ambitions like the rest of us, but he knew he had
a good sense for letting people find their own paths and helping them
to actualize themselves, and it was the case that over the years the
charily duties ate up the scholarly ambitions. John sometimes thus lived in the successes and glories of
others, but through all the turmoil and idiocies of trying to herd
those academic cats, he kept both his sense of humor and his sense of
generousness while always keeping an eye out for some delightful mischief
that would remind us all that our pretensions need not be taken to
seriously. So John
Brantley seems a clear instantiation of an academic trickster, and
Frank Kersnowski and I decided it would be enjoyable to do a
festschrift for him. Thus
we contacted several folks and got agreements from them to write something for
John to appear in this issue. They represent a wide (and greatly
incomplete) range of the kind of effect John had on colleagues,
students, and friends. Never
one to take himself or others too seriously, he good humoredly helped
several generations of students and scholars find their own way, and
the pieces here are just a small tribute to him.
The pieces here are divided into three
categories; Memories, Scholarship, and Creative. Here follows list and
comments from folk who chose to participate in this festschrift:
- Naomi
Shihab Nye, a poet and former student, writes a memory piece about
John Brantley and his role as a teacher.
- Jane
Focht-Hansen, a former student and teacher at another university
in San Antonio, writes about her undergraduate days and the changes they have
made in her life.
- Marguerite
Barzun, who taught with John for several years, does a piece on "Lizzie
Borden & the American Realists".
- Frank
Kernsowski, a colleague and co-conspirator in this festschrift,
had included an unpublished piece called: "Durrell's Cockerel
- Caesar's Vast Ghost"
- Ulf
Kirkendorf, a former student who now teaches at university level,
offers "Sanctuary - Temple as a Parrot"
- C.
W. Spinks, a colleague and co-conspirator in this festschrift,
brings "Peirce and Jung - Modern Gnostics in Search of
Soul"
- Robert
Flynn, a colleague and former novelist in residence at Trinity, does
a piece called "Testifying in the Baptist Church"
- Skip
Eno, a former student and forensic coach at University of Texas at
San Antonio, offers two
chapters from a Novel in Progress
- Judy
Eno, a former student and teacher at Taft high school, offers: a
poem - "Emily Digs William Carlos"
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