In Memoriam Dr. Martin Bakker (1933-2020)
M
artinus Arnoud Bakker, professor emeritus of Dutch at Calvin University and faithful columnist in the DIS Magazine, passed away peacefully in his home on June 30, 2020. He was 87 years old. Dr. Martin Bakker’s career of teaching Dutch language, literature, and culture to North Americans began when he joined the Calvin College faculty in 1981, where he taught until his retirement in 1997. At Calvin, Professor Bakker carried the program as the only full-time Dutch faculty member, teaching all levels of language and literature. Martin also led student trips to the Netherlands as well as to South Africa. Raised in the Netherlands, Martin moved to South Africa in his teens and worked in a language lab, translating Dutch to Afrikaans, in addition to teaching Afrikaans at the University level. In South Africa Martin also met Louise Jansen van Vuuren who would become his wife. In his early forties, Martin and family moved to the Netherlands where he taught High School English. In his forties, Martin and family moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan for Martin to begin a professorship at Calvin College. An expert in Dutch literature, Dr. Bakker earned his Ph.D. at the Open University in Utrecht in the Netherlands with a dissertation on the great Dutch poet Martinus Nijhoff. Professor Bakker was known also as a skilled linguist, a scholar of modern poetry, a prolific
6
reviewer of Dutch literature in publications such as World Literature Today, The World and I, and the Encyclopedia Brittanica Yearbook Supplement. Colleagues remember Martin for his dry sense of humor and for the encouragement he gave to younger colleagues. He was also an astute reader of literature, and colleagues enjoyed his sharp literary analysis. More than anything, perhaps, Martin was forever a student of language. Language—in all its nuance, idiom, and idiosyncrasies—was an endless source of fascination for Martin. He loved to talk about language, and I, for one, enjoyed many a conversation with him about this or that expression that had no direct equivalent in this or that other language, whether Dutch, English, Afrikaans, or German. As Martin’s successor at Calvin College (now University) I was always glad to know that if I ever had a question about something in Dutch, an answer would be only a quick e-mail away. He enjoyed sharing his linguistic expertise. Professor Bakker also loved to write about language. Readers of the DIS Magazine will, of course, know Dr. Bakker as the author of the popular column “Beter Nederlands” which Martin created and debuted in 1997. Martin faithfully produced column after column of Beter Nederlands until 2018, writing nearly 90 columns all in all. Nearly always written in a combination of English and Dutch, Martin’s Beter Nederlands pieces were both educational and
d.i.s. Magazine
