Distinguished Professor retires after more than 20 years

After more than 20 years of teaching at IU, Distinguished Professor of English and Women’s Studies Susan Gubar retired at the end of the spring semester.

Things have changed since Gubar was a student. She said she never had a female professor in her undergraduate or graduate studies.

“The department of English today has a great mix of women and men,” Gubar said, “and we are deeply committed to diversity on all levels. This can only be a boon for students.”

Gubar said one of her favorite memories of teaching at IU was hearing a student recite a Dylan Thomas poem for extra credit in front of a large class.

“He took my breath away,” she said. “He had been struggling with the death of his father through much of the semester, and then he stood up and recited the poem. It was an astonishingly powerful and beautiful moment, not only for me but for all the freshmen in the room, even those who had not a clue what the poem might have meant to him personally.”

Gubar said she enjoys spending time on Bloomington’s campus.

“Whenever I walk from one building to another, I build in time to sit near the Herman Wells statue or near the President’s house or the arboretum or the art museum,” she said. “The groundskeepers deserve so much praise for the beauties of our walkways and their circuitous brick paths.”

Gubar said she liked directing graduate students’ dissertations because she feels “as if we can cut through a lot of social noise and really focus on producing publishable, interpretative prose.”

The thing Gubar said she would miss most is her office, with windows overlooking the woods.

“Even though Ballantine is a building Stalin might have been proud of constructing, I have enjoyed being at the heart of the campus,” she said.

Gubar said that following retirement, she plans on staying in Bloomington and doing community and campus service.

— Arial Ivas