In Remembrance: Professor Robert J. Bertholf

Year 2017, Issue: 46, 1 - 2, 01.04.2017

Gordon J. R. Marshall

Abstract

On behalf of the board and the members of the American Studies Association of Turkey I am saddened to announce the passing of Professor Robert Bertholf at his home in Austin, Texas on February 19, 2016. Professor Bertholf began his academic career at Bowdoin College where he earned his BA before moving on to University of Oregon where he received his PhD. From 1968 through 1979, Professor Bertholf taught at Kent State University where he edited the little magazine Credences, as well as organizing lectures by some of America’s greatest modern poets including Robert Creely with whom he would reunite at the University at Buffalo , Joanne Kyger, Robert Duncan, and Allen Ginsberg. In 1979 Professor Berholf moved on to the University at Buffalo where he became Curator of the Poetry and Rare Books collection, a center for the preservation of 20th century modern poetry since its founding by Charles D. Abbott in 1939 when he was director of the University Libraries. Professor Bertholf continued to expand the collection, strengthening its focus on mid-century writing as keeping up with contemporary movements of poetry. While at the University of Buffalo he published analytic work on Robert Duncan, as well as editing a number of collections of the poetry, correspondence, and prose of Duncan and other postwar poets.