Fond Farewell to Longtime Faculty

This year, the KU English Department celebrated the retirements of two beloved faculty members: Doreen Fowler and Dorice Williams Elliott. Both Fowler and Elliott were recognized at the annual department Milestones Ceremony, and, thanks to the William Savage Memorial Fund, were honored with early edition Faulkner and Brontë novels, now housed at the Spencer Research Library in recognition of their service and contributions to their respective fields.

Professor Emerita Doreen Fowler

Doreen Fowler came to KU in 2001 as a Full Professor and a nationally renowned scholar in Faulkner studies. At the time she was the author of two books, Faulkner’s Changing Vision: From Outrage to Affirmation and Faulkner: The Return of the Repressed. She would later publish a third monograph, Drawing the Line: The Father Reimagined in Faulkner, Wright, O’Connor, and Morrison.

One reviewer for Drawing the Line, Lisa Hinrichsen, wrote, “In contrast to dominant Oedipal interpretations of the father as a divisive figure who introduces opposition and exclusion, Doreen Fowler . . . renders a more complex, paradoxical portrait of the father’s role in establishing identity.. . . . . . Deeply engaged with the nuances of psychoanalytic theory, Drawing the Line . . . sophisticatedly unpacks the father’s function in creating a play of identification and interrelation” (Studies in the Novel p. 382 2014).

Fowler is also the co-editor of no less than eleven books on Faulkner, including: Faulkner and Religion (Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1991), Faulkner and Popular Culture (Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1990), Faulkner and the Craft of Fiction (Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1989), Faulkner and Humor (Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1986), Faulkner and Race (Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1986), Faulkner and Women (Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1985), and Faulkner and the Southern Renaissance (Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1982).

She has also authored no fewer than 50 articles or book chapters, on William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, Flannery O’Connor, Nella Larson, Carson McCullers, and Walker Percy.

Fowler’s research has been respected and recognized at the University as well as nationally. She won a coveted Hall Center Research Fellowship in 2003; she has served on the Executive Committees of the Faulkner Society and the Society for the Study of Southern Literature, and on the Editorial Board of The

Faulkner Journal. She has served as a reviewer of article manuscripts for prominent journals including PMLA, The Faulkner Journal, Studies in the Novel, MELUS, Journal of African American Studies, Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts, Mosaic: A Journal for the Comparative Study of Literature and Ideas, and many more.

Fowler has also been a conscientious and thoughtful advisor for English graduate students. She has served on 23 dissertation committees over the years (six as the dissertation chair) with several more in progress, and 12 MA Thesis or Exam committees, eight of these as Chair. In 2014 she won the coveted Mabel Fry Award for Outstanding Teaching. She led the 2016 ad hoc committee that researched peer institution graduate programs