I was very saddened to learn this morning of the death of Edgar Slotkin, professor emeritus of English, comparative literature and folklore at the University of Cincinnati. He was 72.
I first met Edgar roughly a quarter century ago when I joined the Celtic Studies Association of North America, of which he was one of the founding members and served in various offices, including president. Edgar started teaching at Cincinnati in 1972 even before finishing his Ph.D. in Celtic Studies from Harvard, and he spent four decades at Cincinnati as an active faculty member, training several students who have themselves gone on to pursue scholarship in Celtic studies.
But Edgar's interests were not limited to medieval Ireland and Wales. He also gathered the folklore of the Cincinnati area, making the local residents aware and appreciative of the rich history of their own region. And Edgar was a charming, witty and extremely generous human being, always willing to offer his time, advice and knowledge to anyone seeking it.
I hosted the CSANA meeting here at Ohio State four years ago when we honored Edgar with a nearly 300-page Festschrift, a testament to his influence as a scholar, a mentor and a friend. He was humbled by the honor, and briefly (and unusually) speechless at the book's presentation, but we could all see how satisfied he was that his life's work was both deeply appreciated and would continue in the work of subsequent generations of scholars.
He is profoundly missed.