Provost Peggy Agouris sent the following message to the campus community on Oct. 8, 2024. – Ed.
Dear colleagues,
I write to share that Robert J. Fehrenbach, Emeritus Professor of English, passed away in hospice care on September 13. He was 87 years old.
Professor Fehrenbach—Bob to his colleagues and friends—was born December 31, 1936 in Missouri. He earned his B.A. in English (with honors) from Westminster College (Missouri) in 1958, his M.A. in English from Vanderbilt in 1959, and his Ph.D. in English and History from the University of Missouri in 1968. His dissertation was a critical edition of The Politician, a tragedy by playwright James Shirley from the years just prior to the English Civil War and the eighteen-year closure of the London theater.
In 1959, Prof. Fehrenbach returned to his undergraduate alma mater, serving as an instructor until 1963 and Assistant Professor from 1963 to 1967. During this period, he was also supported in his work by a Curators’ Scholarship from the University of Missouri (1963-68) and a Danforth Foundation Teacher Grant, awarded for excellence in teaching, which supported Prof. Fehrenbach for a year of research and research-related travel in the 1966-67 academic year. He joined the faculty of William & Mary in 1967, was quickly promoted to Assistant Professor in 1969 and then became a full professor in 1976. He stayed at William & Mary for the remainder of his career, retiring in 2002.
At William & Mary, Prof. Fehrenbach was a “charismatic teacher” renowned for his classes in English Renaissance literature, principally the two upper-level Shakespeare courses and the course on Renaissance Drama, which were among the most popular in the department.
This renown was reflected in his receiving W&M’s Alumni Award for Teaching Excellence in 1986. Prof. Fehrenbach also offered pathbreaking courses and teaching colloquia both inside and outside the realm of his main scholarly interests: The Black Experience, co-taught with historian Ed Crapol from 1970 through 1972, one of the first William & Mary courses to focus on African American history and culture; a 1972 experimental programs colloquium on Science, Technology and the Arts; The State of the American Dream, an experimental programs weekly forum in 1974-75; and special lecture series on Shakespeare, Music and the Film (1976) and Early Printing and Early Popular Literature (1981). A colleague recalls that he was “powerful proponent for bringing African American literature into the curriculum” and that “as a teacher he enforced challenging standards, which brought out the best in some of our strongest students, many of whom went on to graduate studies.” Another recalls: “His exchanges in his Shakespeare class with a feisty Glenn Close in the mid-70s are the stuff of legend.”
Prof. Fehrenbach provided important service to W&M, serving terms in the early 1970s on the Faculty Affairs Committee and as Faculty Liaison to the Board of Visitors, where he was a tireless advocate for faculty involvement in governance and for holding administrators to strict account and a champion of written procedures and strict adherence to them. He was instrumental in the creation of the English Department Handbook. He also served on the W&M Libraries Committee and, in the late 1970s as computing began to rise in prominence across campus, on an ad hoc Information Systems Advisory Committee.
Outside of W&M, Prof. Fehrenbach served on review committees for the National Endowment for the Humanities and other granting agencies. He was also active in community affairs, serving a term on the board of the Virginia ACLU, acting as a delegate at the Virginia Democratic Convention in 1968, raising funds for the W&M daycare center, and co-founding a food pantry.
Prof. Fehrenbach’s scholarship focused on the English Renaissance, with particular attention to the history of the book and descriptive bibliography. He published many articles and reviews as well as two essays on little-known African American plays of the 19th and early 20th centuries. His (with Lea Ann Boone and Mario A. Di Cesare) 1984 Concordance to the Plays, Poems, and Translations of Christopher Marlowe in the definitive Cornell Concordances series was pioneer in incorporating computer technology in literary studies.
His monumental work is Private Libraries in Renaissance England (PLRE), a “major ongoing editorial project devoted to the history of private book ownership in early modern Britain,” of which he was the founding editor and for which he co-edited each of the ten volumes that have so far been published (most recently in 2020). Prof. Fehrenbach was especially concerned that PLRE not be dedicated merely to documenting the booklists of statesmen, lawyers, and landowners but that it should also expand knowledge of the libraries of a wide range of merchants and clerics across England and document book ownership by early modern women. In support of this massive undertaking, Prof. Fehrenbach sought and was awarded major grants from the NEH and other foundations, ultimately bringing in nearly a quarter of a million dollars—an extraordinary sum for humanistic research. Continuing his commitment to innovation, Prof. Fehrenbach and his PLRE collaborators worked to augment the print PLRE with an online resource hosted by the Folger Shakespeare Library.
A colleague put all of this succinctly: “Bob was a scholar in a very conservative sense of the word. He did useful things.” Another colleague who only overlapped slightly with Prof. Fehrenbach recalls, “he was legendary — a scholar of the old school, a fierce debater, a man of strong opinions.” Another remembers his initial (and continuing) impression of Prof. Fehrenbach as “leonine—both in demeanor, and also for his enviable mane.” Prof. Fehrenbach maintained this vigorous reputation into retirement. As recently as 2022, he wrote to express regrets at not being able to attend a gathering of early ‘70s alums (per their specific request) because he was “just getting off on a long-planned and COVID-delayed bicycle jaunt.”
He is survived by his four children, Peter Fehrenbach, Elisabeth Arnold, Ivan Fehrenbach, and Christoph Fehrenbach, and many grandchildren.
Best,
Peggy