Gerald Early, Ph.D., professor of English and of African and Afro-American studies and director of the African and Afro-American Studies Program in Arts and Sciences, will be named the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters, announced Edward S. Macias, Ph.D., executive vice chancellor and dean of Arts and Sciences. An installation ceremony will be held in February.
"This professorship represents the highest honor that Washington University can give to a faculty member," Macias said. "It recognizes Professor Merle Kling, who led this University as a scholar, teacher and administrator, and Professor Early, who is a writer of international acclaim and a beloved mentor and teacher for our students."
The Kling professorship was created to honor Merle Kling on his retirement as provost in 1983. Award-winning novelist Stanley Elkin, the first to hold the Kling professorship, occupied the chair until his death last May.
Early said he is particularly honored to hold the same professorship as Elkin. "I feel I really have to uphold something because Stanley held the chair," Early said. "If I wind up my career one-half as capable a writer as Stanley, I'll be in good shape."
Early joined the Washington University faculty in 1982 as an instructor in the Black Studies Program. In 1990, he became a full professor of English and of African and Afro-American studies. In 1992, he was appointed director of the African and Afro-American Studies Program.
Primarily, Early is an essayist and American culture critic, as well as an occasional poet. Within the last six months, two of his books have been published. "How the War in the Streets Is Won: Poems on the Quest of Love and Faith," published by Time Being Books in September, is divided into four sections that deal, respectively, with street violence, prizefighting, jazz and family. Together, they form a spiritual odyssey from a beginning of violence, despair, disillusion and alienation to a closing about family, love and hope. As a child growing up in Philadelphia, Early watched as crime took a toll on his neighborhood, but he was deeply impressed by what he calls "the resilient humanity" of the people he knew.
The other book, "One Nation Under a Groove: Motown and American Culture," was published by The Ecco Press in June. From the rise of Diana Ross to the fall of Marvin Gaye, the book describes how Motown gained acceptance in white America and "how it shaped the African-American urban community and was, in turn, shaped by it," Early said.
Last February, Early won a National Book Critics Circle Award in the criticism category for "The Culture of Bruising: Essays on Prizefighting, Literature and Modern American Culture." The book was Early's sequel to his first volume of essays, "Tuxedo Junction: Essays on American Culture," which was published in 1990.
In addition to "The Culture of Bruising," his book "Daughters: On Family and Fatherhood," which chronicles the everyday challenges and triumphs of fatherhood, was a semifinalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1995, making it to the final 10 in the memoirs category.
Early and his wife, Ida, director of development for the University's School of Art, have two daughters, Linnet, 16, and Rosalind, 14.
Early edited the 1993 "Lure and Loathing: Essays on Race, Identity and Ambivalence of Assimilation," which later was named the "Outstanding Book" on the subject of human rights in North America. Early also wrote the introduction to the book. The Gustavus Meyer Center for the Study of Human Rights in North America presented the award.
He also has edited "My Soul's High Song: The Collected Writings of Countee Cullen" and two volumes of "Speech and Power: The African-American Essay in Its Cultural Content."
In 1988, Early was among 10 American writers to receive a $25,000 Whiting Prize. That same year, he was among six to earn a $5,000 General Electric Foundation Award for Younger Writers. His work was included in "The Best Essays of 1986," edited by Elizabeth Hardwick, and in several subsequent volumes in that series.
Early received a bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1974, a master's degree from Cornell University in 1980, and a doctorate from Cornell in 1982, all in English literature.
Kling, who began serving as a faculty member in the Department of Political Science in Arts and Sciences in 1946 and who twice served as dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, is planning to attend the February reception.
In 1976, Kling was appointed the first provost of Washington University. A scholar of the governments and politics of Latin America, Kling earned a bachelor's degree in 1940, a master's degree in 1941, and a doctorate in 1949, all in political science and all from Washington University.
-- Deborah Parker
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