Huston Diehl, Professor of English and CLAS Collegiate Fellow at the University of Iowa, passed away earlier this week at the age of 61. In addition to being an acclaimed critic of early modern English drama and culture, Professor Diehl was a friend of the Text Creation Partnership, graciously donating two undergraduate assignments for publication on our website. We are grateful to her for her willingness to share her pedagogical methods and insights with us and our partners. Her lifelong commitment to pedagogy is reflected in Dream Not of Other Worlds (2007), a moving memoir of her time teaching 10 year-olds in a segregated black school in rural Virginia in 1970.
Professor Diehl’s Staging Reform, Reforming the Stage (1997), was a groundbreaking study of the relationship between Protestant theology and the representational practices of early modern English theater. Reviewing the book for Modern Philology, Katherine Eisaman Maus wrote, “Staging Reform is an excellent book: clearly written, thought-provoking, and intelligently concerned throughout with important topics and texts. Anybody interested in early modern theatrical culture or in the cultural consequences of the Reformation will want to read it.”
A full obituary was printed today in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, which notes that: “Contributions may be made to the Huston Diehl Memorial Fund in care of the University of Iowa Foundation, Levitt Center for University Advancement, 1 West Park Road, Iowa City, IA 52255. This fund, established with an initial bequest from Huston before her death, will help support the teaching and research mission of the English Department at the University of Iowa.”
Our condolences to her friends, family, colleagues, and students.
[This post first appeared on the Text Creation Partnership blog.]