Edwards, Mark W.
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Mark W. Edwards, an emeritus professor in the Department of Classics, spent over two decades serving the Stanford community. Edwards influenced numerous undergraduate and graduate students at Stanford and at other institutions in the United States and Canada. The focus of this two-part interview is the breadth of Edwards’s teaching career and the evolution of his research interests, particularly his work related to Homer. Edwards’s academic success in classical languages began at his English grammar school during his teenage years. He explains how he chose Latin as his major at Bristol University and how, a few years later, he returned to Bristol to earn a second honors degree in Greek. Edwards pursued a master’s degree soon after, where he worked with Thomas Webster of University College London and began studying Homeric formulae. Both Webster and Homer proved to be strong influences on Edwards’s future career. After a year in London, Edwards moved to the United States as a Fulbright fellow at Princeton University and then accepted his first teaching position at Brown University. Edwards describes his impressions of mid-century America, the works of literature he covered in his classes, and his experience as a resident chaperone on campus. Edwards also discusses how not getting tenure at Brown prompted him to apply for a teaching position at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, where he taught for another seven years. He draws interesting comparisons between the two countries based on his student interactions, and provides more detailed information and examples about his work on Homeric formulae that developed over those fourteen years. In the second interview, Edwards describes his years at Stanford as a professor, department chair, and researcher. Edwards found many of his former mentors teaching at Stanford when he arrived in 1969. He taught a variety of Classics graduate courses and non-major undergraduate classes. Edwards also served as department chair for seven years. He discusses the highs and lows of the experience and details the two programs he was most proud of implementing: the Stanford in Greece program, which subsidized student travel in Greece, and the Webster Fund, named in honor of his mentor Thomas Webster, which supported the exchange of guest lecturers between Stanford and University College London. Over the course of thirty plus years teaching Homer’s work, Edwards widened his research to include studying the poet’s type scenes and story patterns. He personally appreciated those moments when Homer broke from the pattern and revealed more of himself. To share this expertise, Edwards wrote a well-received reader for the general public called Homer: Poet of the Iliad. After retiring early from Stanford, Edwards accepted an appointment at the University of California, Santa Cruz to teach Homer to undergraduates in Greek. Edwards concludes his interview with thoughts about how classics remains relevant in modern society. He points to his retirement reading group that recently studied the Odyssey. Through vicarious experience, Edwards feels the retirees gained knowledge from studying the text and relating it to the experiences they had during and after World War II. Edwards remarks that he takes great pleasure in these new interactions with classical texts he has studied his entire career.
Description
| Type of resource | mixed material |
|---|---|
| Date created | March 18, 2016 - March 31, 2016 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Edwards, Mark W. | |
|---|---|---|
| Contributing author | Pyzyk, Mark | |
| Publisher | Stanford Historical Society |
Subjects
| Subject | Mark W. Edwards |
|---|---|
| Subject | Stanford Historical Society |
| Subject | oral histories |
| Subject | interviews |
| Subject | higher education |
| Subject | professors |
Bibliographic information
| Related item |
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| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/tz106dc5291 |
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- The materials are open for research use and may be used freely for non-commercial purposes with an attribution. For commercial permission requests, please contact the Stanford University Archives (universityarchives@stanford.edu).
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
Edwards, Mark W. (2016).
Oral History. Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program Interviews (SC0932).
Department of Special Collections & University Archives, Stanford University Libraries,
Stanford, Calif. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/tz106dc5291
Collection
Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2022
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- archivesref@stanford.edu
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