Literature professor spent last years of life pursuing her passion

Professor Ilinca Zarifopol-Johnston loved life. Through her five-year battle with ovarian cancer, she fought it with courage, her colleagues say. But she succumbed to the illness Tuesday. She was 52.\n"She tried to fight (the cancer)," said Eileen Julian, professor of comparative literature, African American and African diaspora studies, French and Italian. "She had great determination. She just continued to do things she'd always done."\nJulian and Johnston, who taught in the Department of Comparative Literature, had taught a graduate course together -- "Exile or Prison? Writers Under Repression in Eastern Europe and Africa." Johnston, who was born in Romania and immigrated to the United States in 1977, "always asked probing, pertinent, critical questions," Julian said. And her love for IU and the department was evident in her devotion to her work, Julian said.\nDuring the past five years, Johnston returned to teach for several semesters, despite her illness, said Comparative Literature Acting Chairman Gilbert Chaitin. She also continued working on a biography of Romanian expatriate philosopher Emile Cioran and a book of memoirs, "The Escape Artist: Memoirs of a Communist Girl," according to the departmental Web site. \nJohnston was instrumental in creating one of the first freshman topics courses, "Beauty and the Beast: The Classics in Modern Adaptation." The course, which continues to be offered through the comparative literature department, explores the way classical and romantic literature has either been adapted into film and cartoons or has influenced cinema, Chaitin said.\nAs an associate professor of comparative literature, Johnston specialized in 19th and 20th century European literature and literary theory. Her academic endeavors had garnered her numerous awards, including the Esther L. Kinsley Outstanding Dissertation Award for her 1990 work titled "To Kill a Text: The Dialogic Fiction of Hugo, Dickens and Zola." She also received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship.\n"She was a wonderful colleague, full of energy, full of life," said Johnson's dissertation adviser Matei Calinescu, professor emeritus of comparative literature, English and West European studies. "She was also a very serious scholar."\nAmong her friends, Johnston was also known for her hospitable personality.\n"She was a fantastic cook and loved entertaining," Julian said. "She was also an excellent judge of character and very generous. It's a tremendous loss for many of us. To think she's not here, it's devastating."\nA funeral mass and burial will be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at the Dormition of the Mother of God Romanian Orthodox Monastery in Rives Junction, Mich. Instead of flowers, donations may be made to All Saints Orthodox Churchin Bloomington or to the IU Department of Comparative Literature.\n-- Contact Copy Chief Jane Charney at echarney@indiana.edu.