John Bender : An Oral History
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- John Bender, the Jean G. and Morris M. Doyle Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and Professor of Comparative Literature, Emeritus, describes his upbringing and education and his faculty and teaching career at Stanford. He shares memories of Stanford’s English Department during the latter half of the twentieth century, recalls the founding of the Department of Comparative Literature, and offers a synopsis of the history and evolution of the Stanford Humanities Center. Bender also describes his service on several Faculty Senate committees and offers reflections on change over time in his field and on campus.
- Summary
- Part 1 [00:00:00 – 00:30:42] Growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, during World War II • Parents’ upbringings during the Depression • Pride in regional accent • Memories of summer road trips, including one to California • College application process • Transition from Tulsa to Princeton • Princeton’s academic curriculum in the 1950s and memorable courses • Absence of women and people of color at Princeton • Introduction to opera through a music appreciation course • Going to the Metropolitan Opera in New York as a student [00:30:43 – 01:00:32] Decision to major in English • English department at Princeton: Walton Litz, Willard Thorp • Interest in art throughout time at Princeton • A year of graduate school in art at Yale; PhD Program in English at Cornell • Post-graduation trip to Europe • Recruitment to Stanford Department of English faculty • Wife Ann’s law school education • Moving to Stanford in the mid-1960s; first apartment at Jackling House • Serving as faculty resident at Branner Hall • Growth of Stanford’s English Department during the late 1960s • Women on the Stanford faculty • University-wide build-up throughout the 1950s and 1960s under Terman and Sterling • Significant humanities hires in the 1960s • Dissertation on Edmund Spenser • Challenges in first year of teaching [01:00:32 – 01:20:36] Finishing dissertation at Stanford • Role as director of freshman English • Initial denial of tenure and a successful appeal • Changing research focus from Renaissance to the eighteenth century • Theory revolution in the humanities • Organizing the Department of Comparative Literature • Change over time in foreign language departments at Stanford Part 2 [00:00:00 – 00:28:34] Department of Comparative Literature in the 1990s and 2000s • Changes in the field of English over career • Memories and success of graduate students • Evolution of dissertations and changing expectations of dissertations • Changes in literary theory in the 1980s and 1990s • Memories of Sydney J. Freedberg • Chairing the English Department • Service on Faculty Senate, including Committee on the Professoriate and Committee on Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid • Asian American admissions [00:28:35 – 00:59:01] Faculty Senate’s Committee on Libraries • Controversies over the University Press • Stanford Humanities Center: history, key initiatives, directorship • Arts at Stanford [00:59:02 – 01:27:11] Memories of the slide library • Thoughts on changes to campus buildings and landscaping over time • Admiration for former university architect David Neuman • Evolution of food service at Stanford: increase in catered meals, historical role of faculty wives in providing hospitality
Description
| Type of resource | moving image, sound recording-nonmusical, text |
|---|---|
| Extent | 2 video files; 2 audio files; 1 text file |
| Place | Stanford (Calif.) |
| Publisher | Stanford Historical Society |
| Date created | February 16, 2021 - 2021-02-23 |
| Language | English |
| Digital origin | born digital |
Creators/Contributors
| Interviewee | Bender, John B. | |
|---|---|---|
| Creator | Bender, John B. | |
| Interviewer | Fryberger, Betsy G. | |
| Publisher | Stanford Historical Society |
Subjects
| Subject | Bender, John B. |
|---|---|
| Subject | Stanford University. English Department |
| Subject | Stanford University. Department of Comparative Literature |
| Subject | Stanford Humanities Center |
| Genre | Interview |
Bibliographic information
| Biographical Profile | John Bender’s research and teaching focus on the eighteenth century in England and France. His special concerns include the relationship of literature to the visual arts, to philosophy and science, as well as to the sociology of literature and critical theory. He is on the faculty in both English and Comparative Literature at Stanford University. Bender is the author of Spenser and Literary Pictorialism (1972), Imagining the Penitentiary: Fiction and the Architecture of Mind in 18th-Century England (1987), which received the Gottschalk Prize of the American Society for 18th-Century Studies, and (as co-author with Michael Marrinan) The Culture of Diagram (2010). He has published articles on Shakespeare, Piranesi, Hogarth, Hume, Goldsmith, Blake, Godwin, Laclos and on theoretical issues including fictionality and scientific inquiry. Many of his essays are collected in Ends of Enlightenment (2012). He is co-editor of The Ends of Rhetoric: History, Theory, Practice (1990), Chronotypes: The Construction of Time (1991), The Columbia History of the British Novel (1994), the Oxford World Classics edition of Tom Jones (1996), and Regimes of Description: In the Archive of the Eighteenth Century (2005). |
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| Transcript |
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| Finding Aid | |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/ww964zj8745 |
| Location | SC0932 |
| Repository | Stanford University. Libraries. Department of Special Collections and University Archives |
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.
Collection
Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2022
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