Harry Marten, the Edward E. Hale Jr. Professor of English Emeritus, died Thursday, Oct. 10, at Albany Medical Center. He was 80.
No other details were released about his death.
Harry Marten, the Edward E. Hale Jr. Professor of English Emeritus
Marten joined Union in 1976; he retired at the end of the 2011-12 academic year.
He came to Union from Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., where he was an assistant professor. He earned doctorate and master’s degrees at the University of California in Santa Barbara, Calif., and a bachelor’s degree from SUNY Binghamton.
His teaching interests included modern British and American literature. He has published in The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post Book World, The Gettysburg Review, The Ohio Review, New England Review, ELH, The Centennial Review, Contemporary Literature and others.
He has written books on poets Conrad Aiken and Denise Levertov, and he has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies and the Huntington Library.
At Union, Marten was regarded as a generous friend and colleague who took special pleasure in helping his junior colleagues develop as writers, instructors and participants in the college community, said Jordan Smith.
Marten was chair of the English Department when Smith joined Union in 1981. Smith now holds the title once held by Marten, Edward Everett Hale Jr., Professor of English.
“He took pride in the department's record of getting junior faculty safely through the tenure review process and in his own commitment, when writing faculty evaluations, to reading carefully all of the work each of us produced,” Smith recalled.
“I learned more from him than I can say, not just about teaching and dealing with the complexities of the academic world, but about raising kids, playing music, negotiating the pleasures and difficulties of work and family. When I think of him, it's often of his late afternoon phone calls that would start with some departmental concerns and segue into what we were reading or listening to and what our families were up to. He was a master of kind instruction and a dear friend.”
James McCord, professor of English emeritus, knew Marten for 55 years. He described Marten as a special person who was open, honest, forthright, kind, considerate, generous and supportive of others.
“When we met, Harry was finishing his doctoral thesis on William Hogarth and Charles Dickens,” McCord said. “I realize now that his early attraction to these two expanded and deepened throughout his life. For Harry, Hogarth and Dickens were not simply masters of caricature, character and storytelling, they were the keenest observers and portrayers of human life, their intention to guide us on how to best live full, valued lives and how to avoid failings that make us less than what we could be.”
As a lover of literature, constant reader and inspiring teacher, Marten learned to live with open eyes and mind, which is what he offered his students, McCord said.
“He’d cover literary methods, of course, but the chief focus for discussion was human thoughts and feelings, actions and interactions, and how we’re shaped by personal, social and other forces,” McCord said. “His classroom was inviting, congenial, and filled with exchanges of viewpoints between the students themselves and between the students and Harry. In all that Harry did at Union and in his life, his work was impeccable, his ethics unshakable, his influence on the lives of others inspirational.”
Brenda Wineapple, formerly the Doris Zemurray Stone Chair of Modern Literary and Historical Studies, said, “Harry devotedly loved his family-- and he loved the English Department, which, whether or not he chaired it, he shaped according to his unswerving vision of collegiality and competence, and he generously offered his colleagues a doting mentorship accompanied by his marvelously dry and perspicacious wit."
Raised in the Bronx, Marten revisited his childhood in his 2007 memoir, “But That Didn't Happen to You: Recollections and Inventions.” He described his memoir as “a conversation across generations.” It offered reflections on the nature of memory, the immigrant experience, storytelling, old age and family relationships.
Upon its release, Anita Diamant, author of “The Red Tent,” said she felt blessed reading his memoir.
“Not in any metaphysical woo-woo angel/heaven way,” she said. “But blessed in the way of being surprised by a yellow sunset, or of seeing a 2-year-old waddling around in a tulle skirt, or of being in the presence of profound tenderness. Blessed. Wow.”
He also produced a collection of essays, “Shadowlands: Portraits of Old Age,” his evocative account of coming to grips with dementia that afflicted his stepmother, Ann Marten, in her late eighties. She came into Harry’s life when he was five, marrying his father after his biological mother died.
“She brought her piano and her affection and made our worlds immensely better,” Marten said at the time.
“Usually I pick my projects, but this one picked me. I wanted to understand my mother and know this experience because it was coming at me all the time. She lives in a world nobody can reach. I try to create it and imagine what that world would be like.”
Marten lived close to Union in nearby Niskayuna. In retirement, he continued to stay engaged with the campus. A gifted musician who played several instruments, he was a regular at Green House Jams.
He also taught courses for the Union College Academy for Lifelong Learning. A literature class he was scheduled to teach this fall was rescheduled for spring.
“Harry was a special person and will be dearly missed by all of us,” said Valerie D’Amario, director of UCALL. “This month would have marked the 11th UCALL course he had led since 2015, with many returning year after year to share in his small group book discussions. I feel privileged to have known and worked with him.”
Linda Doyle, a member of UCALL, said Marten generously shared his incomparable love and knowledge of literature, including an extensive and varied selection of books, short stories and poems, both classic and modern.
“Much more than an instructor, Harry was equally a participant in our small group book discussions, leading us always with enthusiasm and humor,” said Doyle.
Survivors include his wife of 59 years, Ginit; two sons, Peter and Timothy; two grandchildren, Saga and Zachary; and a sister, Elizabeth.
Calling hours will be Saturday, Oct. 19, from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. at Gleason Funeral home, 730 Union St., Schenectady.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Planned Parenthood.