James Nohrnberg:  

Life & occupation. English Prof., now emeritus, U. of Virginia: I teach & write about the Bible, Dante, & Ren. lit., esp. Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton; studied w/ I.A. Richards, Marshall McLuhan, Northrop Frye, Robt. Lowell; taught at Toronto, Harvard, Yale; lectured at Princeton (Gauss seminars); published lit. crit. & poetry throughout my adult life, from age 17). I started teaching my own college literature classes in 1963 at Toronto, and first taught grad students in 1967 at Harvard. I met my wife-to-be, Stephanie, in '60, we married (at last!) in '64. Daughter Gabrielle, nursery school teacher at Temple Emmanuel NYC, and now Director, lives in the city w/ her husband Fabio & twins James & Hugh (she holds degrees from Brown and Columbia); son Peter, English prof., has been at Harvard in Cambridge MA w/ his wife Michele, daughter Madeline, & son Jeremy (Peter holds degrees from Harvard, Oxford, and Yale). (More in Who's Who in America. See photos, here, for my wife and family, especially at holidays.) Going to the photos album by album (there are four of these collections) will display many more pictures than the “gallery” selection does—including some pictures of the “historical interest” variety, and some candid tribute-portraiture. Tap “album view,” and then tap one or another of the four specific albums. Immediate living kin, who were also at BHS. My brother John Peter N. lives in San Francisco, and my sister Mrs. Lois L. N. Rockoff in Vancouver, WA. (John is a contractor with degrees from Yale Col. and Stanford Business School; Lois is a retired nurse with both liberal arts and nursing degrees (SF State). Both of my siblings have been long-term married (John is now a widower), and Lois is the mother of two grown and college-educated children [Pomona, UCBerkeley].) Primary & Secondary School. Teachers who mattered most to me were, at Harding Elementary, Mrs. Shaugnessy (kindergarten), Miss Cassidy (2nd grade); at Emerson Elementary: Mrs. Hannah (6th); at Willard Jr. High: Miss Ida Bloomert (7-9th grades), Mrs. Duncum (8th), Mr. James Hughes & Mr. Elmer Sitkin (9th); at Berkeley High: Mr. Van Waynan (11th--with fellow students Earl Mayeri, Martin Singer, Thomas Fukuya, Blair White, and Oleg Maslenikov), Mr. James Pendelton (12th), and Mrs. Mary B. Teaney (10th, 12th). I'd also remember Mrs. Smith (3rd grade) and Mrs. Hall at Emerson (4th & 5th); Mr. Leavitt, Mrs. Abbott, Miss Bonny and Mrs. Kellogg at Willard; and Mr. Barnes, Mr. Carr, Mrs. Pillars, and Miss White (10th: Latin) at BHS. In Berkeley I was a member of Pack 4 of the Cub Scouts (under Packmaster Collins), Troop 4 of the Boy Scouts (under Scoutmaster Julian Adams), and the St. John's Presbyterian Church (which also sponsored the Scouts; under Revs. Stanley Hunter, Vernon Richards, and James Comfort Smith). My scouting experience, from Cub Scouts on, was shared with Oleg Maslenikov, Blair White, Michael Collins (Michel Berline's mom was our Den Mother). Very influential were older scouts Ed Crouch and Thomas Engelsing. Stephen Chandler, Keith Robinson, Martin Singer, and Victor Elisher were contemporaries in the same troop. I served as an Assistant Scoutmaster and 2nd in co-command, with best friend Tom Fukuya, during my ninth summer at Troop 4's camp in the Sierras ("Spicers"), and was sent to Europe to represent my region's council (Mt. Diablo) at the Baden-Powell Jubilee in 1957 (Sutton-Coldfield, with excursions in England, and visits to Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfort, the Rhine from Cologne to Heidelberg, Baden-Baden, Geneva, and Paris). In 1958 I won the student poetry prize of the Northern California Writers Conference and met Brother Antoninus/Wm. Everson on the occasion, where he spoke about my poem, which was read by Rosalie Moore. I took piano for six years with Mrs. Jeanie Bruce Spence. College & grad school. Kenyon Prize Scholar in Eng. & Amer. Lit. '58-60; Freshman Book Prize (for Shakespeare essay) '59; Robert Frost Poetry Prize '60 (sole hon. ment. '59); McBride Prize 2nd pl. (for poems); teachers: John Yolton, Daniel Howard, et al.; poetry judges, John Crowe Ransom, Irving Feldman. Harvard College '60-62: BA magna cum laude '62, high honors in English; Phi Beta Kappa '62; Dept. exam '62, summa (& highest mark); American Academy of Poets Award '62; Hatch Prize for Lyric Poetry, 2nd pl., '62; Harvard Advocate, Literary Assoc. '60-62; reading at Poet's Theatre 1962; recording of poems for Woodbury Poetry Room '62; Harvard Student Calendar, editor, '61/2; Woodrow Wilson Fellowship '62 (to Toronto, Yale, or UCBerkeley). Teachers: David Perkins, Larry Benson, Cedric Whitman, Reuben Brower, Douglas Bush, I.A. Richards, et al.; poetry judges: Richard Poirier, Theodore Morrison. University of Toronto '62-65: PhD 70 (thesis dir., Northrop Frye); Woodrow Wilson Fellowship '62/3; Jr. Fellow, Massey College, '63/4; Ontario Provincial Scholarship 63/4; Queen Elizabeth II Ontario Scholarship '64/5; Norma Epstein Award for Creative Writing, div. of prize monies '64. Teachers: Northrop Frye, A.S.P. Woodhouse, Clifford Leech, Derek Pearsall, Marshall McLuhan, et al. Harvard U., '65-68: Jr. Fellow, Soc. of Fellows; Teachers: Robert Lowell, Robert Fitzgerald. In the latter day, I consider myself a student of Paul Alpers, Paul de Man, John Freccero, Gerhard von Rad, Alastair Fowler, and Meir Sternberg (all friends and/or colleagues, except von Rad). Languages "studied at" (in order): English, Latin, French, Attic and Homeric Greek, Middle English, German, Anglo-Saxon, Biblical Hebrew, Dante's & Ren. Italian (but I remain a virtual unilingual monoglot). Post-grad. I've published lit. crit. on the Bible, Spenser, Milton, Shakespeare, Dante, Boiardo, Sir Walter Raleigh, Tennyson, allegory, myth, exegesis, Marshall McLuhan, Northrop Frye, and Thomas Pynchon, and presented MLA, ACLA, and RSA papers on many of the ancients, including Sir Th...Expand for more