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CLASS NOTES
Clyde A. Moneyhun Larry Mumm tells us that his son, Andy, is a member of the class of 2006. “I am proudly wearing my Columbia sweatshirt: my school, and now my son’s school.” Larry, Andy and the rest of the family spent a great afternoon on campus in December, including a visit to V&T. “Now,” reports Larry, “I have two years to talk his 15-year-old sister, Laura, into applying.” Larry Collins reports from Toledo, Ohio, that he coordinates student assistant services for Toledo Public Schools. He is certified in blood bank technology, BB (ASCP0) and has a master’s from the University of Toledo in agency counseling. He is the founder of an Afrocentric HIV/AIDS prevention education project in Toledo, where he lives with his wife and four children. In a delightfully long and newsy message, Jim Berger reports that he ended up going into the same profession as I and is an associate professor of English at Hofstra University, where another ’76er, Dana Brand, was department chair for several years. “I did not go directly to grad school; far from it. I was out of school 10 years; got an M.A. in education at Teachers College in elementary ed and taught in Tanzania for three years at an international school (up country in Moshi, just south of Kilimanjaro — I could see it from my window every morning before it clouded over). I started grad school at the University of Virginia in 1987, got my degree in 1994, married Jennifer Klein (grad student in U.S. history) in 1995, taught two years as visiting assistant professor at George Mason, got one year as a Charles Phelps Taft post-doc at the University of Cincinnati, then started at Hofstra in 1997. My first book, After the End: Representations of Post-Apocalypse, was published, appropriately, in 1999 by the University of Minnesota Press. It’s a study of literary and cultural responses to catastrophes that have been figured in apocalyptic terms: recent Holocaust literature and film, fiction by Pynchon and Morrison, and selections of American pop culture and politics of the 1980s. Psychoanalytic theories of trauma figure prominently, trauma becoming in recent literary theory a kind of secular inversion of apocalypse, with symptoms (following the event) replacing portents; one reads backward rather than forward, but reaches a similar sort of unrepresentable fulcrum of history. “Jennifer taught at Smith College for four years and recently accepted a job as assistant professor in the history department at Yale. We live in New Haven. We moved here two years ago to be midway between Hofstra and Smith. I’ll be off next year on an NEH, working on a new book project on portrayals of language impairment in modern literature and culture from Billy Budd to Oliver Sacks. Jen and I don’t have kids — yet. Do I have the energy to raise a child and write another two or three books? Guess I’ll find out.” Robert Seigfried started as pre-med and then wandered into pre-dental before finding his way into the 4-2 program in engineering, “a move that I am thankful for making,” he says. After 11 years of teaching at Saint Peter’s College, he has “crossed the Hudson and come home” and is in his third year of teaching computer science at Adelphi University. He has been married to his wife, Katherine, for seven years; son Jason just turned 6. Robert and his family live in Oceanside, where he frequently sees his brother, Marvin ’78, and friend, Monte Nussbaum ’78.
David Gorman
Matthew Nemerson Having been a fan of communication and technology before my Columbia days, I remain perplexed by the recent silence emanating from the Class Notes department of desktops (real and virtual). It seems that since offering you the ease of electronic correspondence, coupled with the new every-other-month regularity of the column, we have succeeded only in reducing the — albeit small — rivulet of updates to barely a trickle. With the reunion now less than a year away, I’m hoping that we can turn this around by September. So, please let us know what you did on your summer vacations.
Lyle Steele In the second-hand news department: I received a nice note from well-known, now-retired Professor Karl-Ludwig Selig about an alumnus sighting. Selig, of Don Quixote fame, was eating in a local restaurant and was recognized by the diner at the next table: Michael Harvey. A mini-reunion ensued. Selig was extremely moved to be remembered and sends his regards to everyone. Please send your info to lyle_steele@hotmail.com.
Craig Lesser After 13 years on the West Side, your class columnist has moved
west across the river (and over the GW Bridge) to Fort Lee,
N.J. Congratulations to Steve Kane, elected a managing director at Rich May, a mid-sized Boston law firm. Steve’s been with Rich May since 1983 following graduation from Columbia Law. His practice concentrates on corporate, commercial, securities and financial matters. He lives in Newton, Mass., with his wife, Cindy, and their three children. Steve has served as president of Newton North Little League and has coached several youth sports teams. Please let me hear from you, and be well.
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