In Memory of James A. Berlin Memories of Jim Berlin - JAC Online

In Memory of James A. Berlin
Memories of Jim Berlin
JANICE M. LAUER
No single voice can hope to express what Jim Berlin meant to us professionally
and personally. We at Purdue were fortunate to have worked with him
closely for seven years, but Jim was a colleague, friend, and inspiration to
many others aswell. He shared himself-his time, his support, his ideas-not
only with close friends but also with those in the field whose papers he heard
at conferences or whom he met in bus or plane stations. This piece gathers
together excerpts from tributes offered at the Purdue Faculty Senate and at
the memorial services at Purdue and the ecce.
A Selection from the Memorial Resolution for Jim Berlin, Purdue Faculty
Senate
Our colleague Jim Berlin died suddenly of a heart attack on February 2, 1994,
after he returned home from his daily jog on the streets of West Lafayette.
Surviving immediate family members are his wife Sandy and his sons Chris
and Dan, both of whom are students at West Lafayette High School.
Jim was a valued member of the rhetoric and composition Ph.D. program
within the Department of English and a respected figure of national
prominence in the field of rhetoric and composition. Two published books
helped him build his reputation as a leading rhetoric theorist and historian:
WritingInstruction in 19th-CenturyAmerican Colleges (Southern Illinois
University Press, 1984) and Rhetoric and Reality: WritingInstruction in
AmericanColleges,1900-1985(Southern Illinois University Press, 1987). He
published numerous articles in journals such as CollegeEnglishand Pre/Text
and contributed essaysto several major collections. This work, together with
his co-edited book on CulturalStudiesintheEnglishClassroom(Heinemann­
Boynton/Cook, 1993), established him as the primary theorist and leading
spokesperson for the cultural studies movement in composition. He was a
frequent visiting speaker at other universities, known for his intense but
humorous presentations.

584 JoumalofAdvancedComposition
Jim's interest in cultural studies arose from his keen sense of social
mission, both as a teacher and as a citizen. He had a vision of a truly
democratic America, where all citizens would fullyparticipate in civicaffairs
and would share power equally and fairly. He saw the English
curriculum-which influences nearly everybody-as a keyvehicle for accomplishing
this goal. At the time of his death, Jim was finishing a third major
book-Rhetorics, Poetics,and Cultures:Re-FiguringEnglishStudies (NCTE
Press)-that will be published in 1994 or 1995. In this last book Jim
reconstructs the history of English studies, showing how the cultural studies
curriculum can help resolve the century-Old split between "rhetoric" and
"poetics" and how that curriculum can contribute not only to improving
students' writing skills but also to helping them become truly thoughtful and
literate citizens.
Jim was born in 1942 in Hamtramck, Michigan. The oldest of seven
children, he attended S1. Florian high School in Hamtramck and distinguished
himself there by earning All-State honors in both football and
basketball. He went to Central Michigan University on a football scholarship,
receiving his B.A. and graduating summa cumlaudein 1964. He was an
elementary school teacher in Flint and Detroit before returning to graduate
school in 1969to work on advanced degrees in English. He received both the
M.A. and the Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, finishing in 1975. In
1975 he accepted a position as an assistant professor of composition at
Wichita State University. From there, he went to the University of Cincinnati,
where he served as Director of Freshman English from 1981to 1985. He
held visiting appointments at the University of Texas and at Penn State
University before coming to Purdue as professor of English in 1987. James
Porter,PurdueUniversity
Tributes from Colleagues, Students, and Former Students
In 1978, I directed an NEH seminar at Carnegie Mellon. The focus of the
seminar was on rhetorical invention. . .. Jim became a member of that
seminar along with nine other talented people .... All of them began giving
birth to avery unusual journal calledPre/Text.Three of that wonderful group
of people are no longer with us. That is a great loss to the discipline; it is a
great loss to us. RichardYoung,CarnegieMellon University
JB was catching; his laughter and critiques were catching. Jim and I were in
transference together. We perpetually argued about what was needed and
desired to be thought and done in our field of rhetoric, especially the history
of rhetoric. The argument started between us in 1978when we were NEH
fellows working with Dick Young at Carnegie Mellon. In our arguments, I
cannot stress enough, JB was unbelievably supportive of me. How to explain
that and now how to live without such support? I have lost over 50 percent
of my audience-the time it took working and planning and understanding

In MemoryofJamesA. Berlin 585
what I was attempting to talk and write about. He's for me irreplaceable, and
obviously the same to so many of us. Without Jim, my talking and thinking
and writing will no doubt change. We wanted to change but not this kind of
change. VictorVitanza,Universityof TexasatArlington
When I heard the news about Jim I sent a message on E-mail for people to
communicate with me encounters they had had with Jim. I'd like to share just
a couple of those with you. . .. One person told me a story about a seminar
in which Jim was participating at Texaswhen he was there and Jim had been
trying to make a point about social constructionism to some reluctant Texas
graduate students. And this graduate student recounted having asked a
question in frustration: "Well, does rhetoric make airplanes fly?" and Jim
said: "Yes, damn it!" Another person said: "It's easy to be a hot shot scholar.
It's not so easyto keep one's perspective in the process, to remain personable,
humble, approachable in the bargain." Jim was a rare and wonderful
individual. Sharon Crowley,Universityof Iowa
To me, Jim Berlin's life can best be characterized by its intensity. He worked
intensely, he argued intensely, he partied intensely, and he loved his family
and friends intensely. And Jim's intensity was infectious, encouraging all
who knew him to work, argue, party, and love more intensely than we might
have otherwise. The conversations Jim and I had about teaching and teacher
preparation and his efforts to define our theoretical positions and the
pedagogies they imply have challenged my thinking and inspired me to the
work I'm most proud of. Like many others who worked with Jim, who read
his work, who knew him, I find myself influenced by him in countless ways.
Irwin Weiser,PurdueUniversity
I feel very much in need of a mourning ritual because I am still having a very
hard time grasping the fact that Jim is dead.... I am having trouble coming
to terms with this because I didn't realize how much I relied on his work and
on the example of his work, both in its theoretical rigor (I think it gave me
courage to think about things that I might not have ventured without that
work being there) and also in its passionate commitment to social justice,
which I think is something that is easy to make fun of or to make fun of
yourself for feeling. The fact that Jim never wavered in that commitment was
very sustaining to me, and 1didn't realize until after he was gone how much
I just relied on him being there, sort of like a nuclear reactor putting out
energy, putting out this solid base of energy and commitment that I was
drawing on without really being aware of it. I really needed that energy, and
I don't know what I'm going to do now that I don't have it anymore. 1haven't
figured that out yet. This is just a terrible loss. PatriciaBizzell,Holy Cross
College

586 Journal ofAdvanced Composition
Jim and I corresponded frequently. I loved those dashed out, full-of-energy,
handwritten letters-rough, rough-yet filled with that wonderful laugh
booming out through his words. One story I remember about Jim took place
at the 1988 WPA Summer Conference in Newport, Rhode Island, where all
of the robber barons' summer cottages were. Seven of us after this conference
rented a fifty-two foot ketch and went out into the bay for the day. Jim took
the tiller of that yacht and I got pictures of him doing that. He was obviously
enjoying himself. I sent him a snapshot of himself piloting that yacht, a
Marxist! I told him that was myblackmail picture. He wrote back saying: "If
it ever comes to a showdown, I'm going to explain that that snapshot was
taken at a cardboard set in an amusement park-innocent amusement, not
decadence. I treasure this picture and what fun we had that day sailing.
TheresaEnos, UniversityofArizona
When news of Jim's death reached me there was a letter from Jim in my
mailbox. It was a letter from me to him and we had spoken a lot in the month
before he died and I thought I'd be talking with him for another twentyyears
because I needed it. I'm not sure if he needed it, but I needed it and I just
assumed that he'd be around me like an oak tree and his disappearance was
a terrible blow. I've grieved terribly for it and have cried a lot and have been
overwhelmed by grief.... Jim was a certain kind of man that in the Yiddish
tradition we call a mensch and Jewish boys grow up hearing a lot from their
fathers: "Be a mensch, be a mensch." And we keep looking at them for the
profile of the mensch to figure out how to do it, which is not as easy to see.
But Jim was a certain kind of a man .... Jim was extremely capable and never
made a big deal about it; his accomplishments rested easily on his shoulders,
which meant that it never was a burden on us who dealt with him because he
wasn't throwing weight around. He just carried the weight very graciously
and this is an achievement given how ferociously socialized all of us are, but
especially men, becoming competitive careerists in the waywe deal with each
other. Although Jim was taller than me, bigger than me, and stronger than
me, when I talked with him I never felt that we were involved in a macho
verbal wrestling match, which was a really wonderful experience about
relating to him as a man in the academy. IraShor,CityUniversityofNew York
Many people have talked here about him being attacked, but he attacked a lot
as well and we shouldn't forget that. When we are at CCCC, I feel that we
remember Jim Berlin best if we find the courage to speak our deepest
convictions because that is the way that we will change this profession and
that is what Jim wanted to do. PatriciaSullivan,PurdueUniversity
We all had our different kinds of conversations with Jim Berlin. With some
he talked mostly theory, with others teaching or sports or the current
squabbles in the profession or politics, and with all of us he talked about his

In Memory ofJamesA. Berlin 587
family. With me Jim talked, of course, about his family and about the upper
peninsula of Michigan, which he loved very much. But mostly with me he
talked about politics; I don't mean party politics, but if you knew him at all
well, you'd know that's the case. When he found out, for example, that I was
trying to bring a faculty union to Michigan Tech, he wrote and called regularly
to tell me how important that work was and to warn me that ifwe didn't win,
it might be bad for me but, accepting that, I should go on. We didn't win and
it hasn't been bad for me. But Jim's warnings were fair and appropriate,
because they were about friendship and institutional reality. In the last year,
when we talked politics, Jim expressed true frustration that maybe he wasn't
doing enough to really make a difference in a world where people are hungry
and homeless and cold. In one of our last phone conversations, he talked
about how teaching and talking were just not enough .... When you go home
[from the CCCC], if you will give something of yourselves to those organizations
[homeless shelters and food banks and soup kitchens], you will make a
better world for Jim's sons, and you will make a better world for each other.
And that is what Jim Berlin's life meant to me. Diana George,Michigan
TechnologicalUniversity
I always responded to Jim as a physical presence; I wanted to be close to him
physically, and I've had the same feeling that Sharon has had walking down
the halls. I'm just sure that I'm seeing him and then he disappears. I'm also
learning about my intellectual debt to him by listening to people. Somebody
asked me about Jim, somebody who didn't know Jim and what role he played
in my life. I tried to recall a time in my professional life when I didn't know
of or know about or rely on Jim Berlin, and I couldn't think of that moment.
The first immediate contact I had with him was at the time I gave my first
paper at RSA in 1986 at Arlington, and, as so many of you have recounted,
he came to me after the paper and said how much he enjoyed it and how much
we needed people doing that kind of work in our profession. What a great
thing to hear just in the beginning .... Jim was very blunt and very funny and
he would saythings about people that really cut to the heart of the matter. He
did have allegiances; he did have opinions and viewsthat he defended in avery
strong way. . .. Jim continued to grow and change as an intellectual and I
remember an image of him walking down the hall saying: "Can you imagine
this-I'm forty-five years old and they've kept Marx away from me all this
time. I finally got it; I finally got it." Susan Jarratt, Miami University of Ohio
I don't remember which CCCC it was and I don't remember which year it was,
but Jim looked at me and said: "I love Composition and Resistance, 1 love
.being part of the project, but one of the things I regret is how many times I
appear in the transcripts; look, I appear more than anyone else. I can't help .
it. 1just want to get involved. 1just want to talk." And I told him a story that
happened in the graduate seminar I was teaching. We were reading Compo-

588 Journal ofAdvanced Composition
sition and Resistance,and one student pointed out, "Look how many times
Jim Berlin talks." Then another student said, "But look, eighty percent of the
time he speaks, it is to encourage other people to talk." Mark Hurlbert,
Indiana Universityof Pennsylvania
He opened spaces for me, for my students, for the lives I touched. He didn't
just open spaces; he opened them for critique and revisioning .... He opened
a space for mywork, which did not require a sacrificing of my passion. And
he infused the livesof his colleagues, his students, his familymembers and his
whole profession in the same way,daring us to take our work as labor and to
wear faces that mark us as knowing the pain of working through, rather than
always already and repeatedly acting out, the theoretical, pedagogical, practical,
structural, and personal injustices of our lives and our world, calling us
(can you hear him?) to open spaces for the possibility of one another's
existence as we go. NancyDeJoy,NazarethCollege
When I think of Jim, I think of laughter. But Iwant to talk about another part
of him that has been important to me. Ialso remember his patience. He could
gauge so well when to critique and when to give us space to work through a
problem at our own pace and our own time. I am grateful to Jim for that. He
gave us space to think, and I realize now much more than I did in graduate
school how seldom we are given that gift and how important it is. Susan
Carlton,PacificLutheran University
Not only the field but the program at Purdue has an enormous hole that
cannot be filled. Jim gave support to those of us who did work that was
marginal to the field, that did work where the field has not yet come. Myrna
Harrienger,TexasTech University
Jim joined the picket line when our Tippecanoe Environmental Council
protested toxic water pollution and inadequate dump cleanups along the
Wabash River, and he went to our AFfteachers union meetings, too. He had
a strong sense of community, championed student rights, and decried individualism.
Probably, he would now want and expect us to link arms and work
as comrades, fighting injustice. KarenGriggs,PurdueUniversity
Purdue graduate students saw a side of Jim that few others have been
fortunate enough to see. As much as Jim roared against the power of
oppressive hegemony, those who knew Jim knew that he loved life. Jim was
directing mydissertation when he passed away. His physical presence will be
missed greatly, but his intellectual presence will remain in my work and the
work of many of his students and colleagues for a long, long time. Bruce
McComiskey,PurdueUniversity

In MemoryofJamesA. Berlin 589
His passion made him a powerful teacher and mentor to me. He pushed me
to do my best work, and though we often disagreed, I always felt like his
colleague as much as his student. He gave me a lot of opportunities, a lot of
space to learn, and a lot of advice- from how to write a proposal to how many
glasses of wine I'm allowed when I go on campus interviews. LisaLangstraat,
PurdueUniversity
The dialogue that I shared with Dr. Berlin was sometimes tense, but always
instructive .... This dialogue, that began the day he invited me to come up
to his office to discuss certain ideas, continued throughout my studies in his
courses and culminated in the plan for a ecce presentation. Then tragedy
struck. I mourn the loss of my teacher, ally, and friend. I miss his physical
presence, but I am also so thankful to have known him. His brilliance and
enduring spirit leave a permanent impression on my soul and serve as a
constant reminder that I should first be consistent and believe in action and,
second, continue to challenge myself and my students with projects that
reflect his image, the relentless critique of the material, social and political
influences. Anne MarieMann Simpkins,PurdueUniversity
James Berlin, thou shalt be sorely missed in our memories for many years to
come. EdwardP.l. Corbett,OhioState University
PurdueUniversity
WestLafayette,Indiana
To Jim
JOHN TRIMBUR
I'm finding it hard to say goodbye to someone who was as much a fixture in
my life as Jim Berlin was. It's not just that I miss Jim personally, which I
certainly do. It's that I had come to count on Jim, as I know so many other
people did too.
Over the years of talk, correspondence, shared work, and joint projects,
I came to understand that Jim's work, for all the trademark intellectual
sophistication that made Jim the leading Marxist rhetorician of our generation,
grew out of a deeply-felt commitment to keep faith with the historic
moral responsibilities of the left to fight oppression and exploitation and to
represent the aspirations and lived experience of ordinary people and their