From: Joseph V Ricapito [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2013 11:35
To: Lauer, A Robert
Subject: RE: Pésame: Tristes noticias
Dear Bob: Karl-Ludwig Selig is the last of the humanist professors. He had a wonderful frame of reference, in all the Romance Languages. To talk to him is to talk to an encyclopedia. I had many wonderful exchanges in which I managed to see what a great scholar he was. R.I.P. Best, Joe Ricapito
From: Coloquio Cervantes [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lauer, A Robert
Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2013 9:51 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: FW: Pésame: Tristes noticias
From: [log in to unmask] [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Sunday, May 19, 2013 10:09
To: Lauer, A Robert
Subject: Re: Tristes noticias
Selig was a great scholar and person. I have only good memories of him. May he rest in peace.
Dario Fernandez-Morera
Northwestern University
-----Original Message-----
From: Lauer, A Robert <[log in to unmask]>
To: CERVANTES-L <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sun, May 19, 2013 6:02 am
Subject: FW: Tristes noticias
From: Cull, John [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>]
Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2013 13:21
To: Lauer, A Robert
Subject: Re: Karl-Ludwig Selig
Estimado Profesor Lauer,
No recuerdo haber visto en este listserve (ni en otro alguno)
noticias sobre el fallecimiento reciente de un hispanista
distinguido y pionero en el estudio de la emblemática hispana:
Karl-Ludwig Selig. A continuación le copio el "In memoriam"
que apareció en una comunicación de Columbia University:
Karl-Ludwig Selig, professor emeritus of Spanish and Portuguese and a Cervantes scholar, died on December 1, 2012, on the Upper West Side. He was 86.
Selig is regarded as one of the world’s foremost experts on Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Known for his course “The Novella: from Boccaccio to Cervantes,” Selig passionately made the case that the modern novel is dependent on Cervantes’ picaresque work. He also taught “Masterpieces of Western Literature and Philosophy II,” also known as “Super Lit Hum.”
PHOTO: LORI GRINKER / CONTACT PRESS IMAGES
Those who took Selig’s class “could never get the books, or the professor, out of [their] mind. Fifty years later, people can recite his lectures,” said Christopher Allegaert ’78 in a recent Spectator article.
Selig was born into a Jewish family in Wiesbaden, Germany, in 1926. He and his parents fled to the United Kingdom in 1939, before the start of WWII, relocating to Erie, Pa. Selig earned a B.A. from Ohio State, where he also swam; an M.A. from Ohio State; and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas, where he later taught. He received his United States citizenship in 1948 and taught at the University of Minnesota, Johns Hopkins, North Carolina and Cornell before joining Columbia in 1966. Selig was presented Columbia’s Mark Van Doren Award for Teaching in 1974. After leaving Columbia in 1989, he taught at the University of the South (Sewanee) and at the University of Greifswald, Germany.
Selig wrote or co-authored 45 books, many of which have been translated into multiple languages.
Selig always was willing and excited to speak with his students, and dozens attended his 86th birthday celebration last August.
Harper’s Magazine Publisher John MacArthur ’78 referenced Selig last year in his Class Day address: “He wanted you to embrace the text, to read it with rigor, but also with pleasure. However, like all of my best professors, Selig insisted that reading text was a fundamentally serious endeavor, that text must be respected.”
“He was resolved to fight as only a devotee of Don Quixote could,” said another former student, Dennis Klainberg ’84, “by staying optimistic, fighting to live another day and keeping in close touch with all his friends, colleagues and especially, his beloved students.”
Selig had an appreciation for the rowing team, which named two sculls after him. A remembrance will be held for him this spring at the Columbia Class of 1929 Boathouse.
Former students may share memories of Selig on the “Fans of Karl-Ludwig Selig” group on Facebook. Several of Selig’s former students have taken up a collection for his caretaker, Gilbert Adiaba. For information on how to donate, contact Dennis Klainberg ’84 ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) or Ted Allegaert ’87 ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>).
Un saludo cordial,
John T. Cull
________________________________
NB de ARL: Gracias, John. Es en efecto una triste noticia. Llegué a conocer a Karl-Ludwig Selig en la MLA (hace años) y después nos comunicamos brevemente por e-mail. Mi impresión fue siempre de que era un hombre muy sabio y muy bondadoso. Por lo que leo, habría sido maravilloso haber tenido clases con él. Saludos cordiales.
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