The ILA (Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts at Emory University) has offered to honor Bob Detweiler by permanently naming one of their seminar rooms after him. Donations may be sent to:
Emory University
In memory of Dr. Robert Detweiler
Attn: Jeffrey Prince
Senior Director of Development and Alumni Relations for Emory College
Arts & Sciences Development
825 Houston Mill Road, Ste. 102
jprince @ emory.edu
404-727-4494 (Office)
404-217-2778 (Cell)
404-727-1805 (Fax)
The Emory Report will also have an article on Bob in the coming week’s issue.
I’ll be delivering the poem below at the memorial service in the morning. When I’ve had more time to process all of this a little more I hope to write another, but I hope that this will serve the purposes of the occasion.
Nexus
In Memory of Bob Detweiler
We gathered here today as one
Make an unlikely flock,
So here is just a simple rhyme
To honor our good doc.
A teacher he, who greeted us,
And beckoned from the door,
And for each question that was asked
Presented us four more.
Some Jupiter in him – and Pan –
A touch of Socrates,
St. Nikolas for splintered ones
To put each mind at ease.
Grandfather to my Adelheid,
The alpine horn he blew.
(He had some running joke – I think –
With every friend he knew).
Imagination disciplined
Is what he taught us best –
To wrestle with the text unique
To BE THERE was the rest –
And maybe most in stories full
Of shaming, war and pain,
The book shows more than it can know –
Complexity constrained.
To find – in flesh becoming word –
A testimony true,
Behind the fiction, structures live
Transforming me and you.
When each of us recalls that sense
At other vineyards found,
We fire – like the synapse jumps –
New paths and meanings ground.
Extraordinary gift it is
When such a man as this
Combines the voices that he knows
As nexus of the mix.
For bare survival’s not enough
There should be celebration,
And dignity – respect and grace –
An artful life – affection.
Good company he was to us
To read – religiously,
Where it was safe to share our souls –
Write better ways to be.
No heart have I for coiled abyss –
No crafted emptiness
Wrapped up in ghostly metaphors
– And echoes of the rest.
If like the birds now – each to each –
We cry so differently,
We still take comfort – back and forth –
through our sweet liturgies.
Your work is done (… say “Hi” to Donne).
I miss your twinkly eye.
I thank you for the chance to talk …
Good-bye – dear friend, good-bye.
I got the notice of Bob Detweiler’s obituary just as I finished the first draft of the poem I’m going to read at the memorial service on Saturday morning. Yes, he treated each one of us as a peer, and brought out every speck of brilliance and humor that we had in us. The twinkly eyes seem to have been appreciated by all.
Dr. Robert Detweiler was a dedicated scholar but he didn’t take himself too seriously. The former Emory University professor often attended his graduate students’ parties, and he loved telling jokes.
“He just had a merry twinkle in his eye. He took life in general with a certain amount of humor and detachment. He had a genuine warmth for other people,†said Dr. Robert Paul of Atlanta, dean of Emory College.
Dr. Robert Detweiler spent six years in postwar Germany helping refugee families.
“He struck you as a kidder, but he worked very hard. He had a very strong record of academic publications,†said Dr. Paul, who was his colleague in the 1980s.
Dr. Detweiler, who taught comparative literature, served as the director of the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts at Emory from 1973 to 1982.
He became nationally recognized for his insights in the areas of religion and literature, as well as his work on authors John Updike and Saul Bellow.
His books include, “Breaking the Fall: Religious Readings of Contemporary Fiction†in 1987 and “Uncivil Rites: American Fiction, Religion, and the Public Sphere†in 1996.
Dr. Detweiler became a lifelong mentor to many of his students, guiding them in their search for jobs after graduation, said Harriette Grissom of Asheville, N.C., a former student.
“He wasn’t paternalistic about it. He always treated you as a peer, not a student,†she said.
Dr. Detweiler was born in Souderton, Pa., and was reared as a Mennonite. He earned a divinity degree from Goshen College, and after college traveled to Germany on a church-sponsored relief project to assist in the post-war rebuilding of the country. He stayed six years, helping build homes for refugee families and counseling students who had lost their families.
Former student Gary Tapp said that experience helped shape Dr. Detweiler’s outlook.
“We knew he had been through a lot in Germany. It enabled him to not take the small trials and tribulations of university life too seriously,†said Mr. Tapp, of Atlanta.
Dr. Detweiler met his wife, Gertrude Detweiler, in Germany. Although he left the Mennonite faith as an adult, he remained strongly influenced by his upbringing and enjoyed listening to Mennonite hymns.
His experiences in Germany and in his advanced studies “opened his mind but didn’t stop him from being a deeply theological thinker,†said Dr. Paul. “From his Mennonite background, he retained a communal spirit and the feeling of the sacredness of life.â€
Dr. Detweiler, 76, formerly of Atlanta, died Sunday at his St. Simons Island residence after a series of strokes, his wife said.
The body was cremated. Cremation Society of the South is in charge of arrangements.
The memorial service will be Saturday at 10 a.m. at Emory University’s Canon Chapel.
Survivors other than his wife include a daughter, Bettina Detweiler of Atlanta; a son, Dirk Detweiler of Aspen, Colo.; and four grandchildren.
