James Slevin

Last month brought the sad news that Professor James Slevin of Georgetown University's English department had passed away.  It has taken me weeks to figure out what I want to say about him in both tribute and gratitude for all that he has given to academia, and I wish that I'd been able to attend the MLA conference to see him accept the ADE award and perhaps thank him in person for the influence he has had on my career.  I attended graduate school at GU nearly twenty years ago, and Professor Slevin was one of my instructors.  What impressed me then and what  I remember now was his dedication to the profession of teaching.  I still have a copy of an essay by Martin Buber which Professor Slevin gave me and which discusses teaching as a vocation, a call to profess that which we know.  And he professed in a down-to-earth manner, never pretentious and always direct.  Professor Slevin had the gift of listening and then posing a question that reframed the speaker's perspective for the better. There was a breadth and depth to what he knew, and we were lucky graduate students to be working with him.  I know that I am a better teacher for having studied with him.