The English Department is deeply saddened to announce the passing of Professor Kathleen Lundeen this past summer. She was a teacher, colleague, mentor, and friend to many at Western–and beyond. She will be remembered for her grace and kindness, her effervescence (including her mercurial laugh), and her deep intelligence and compassion. A native of the Pacific Northwest, Kathy was born in Portland and grew up in Eugene, Oregon. She lived in California while she completed her undergraduate and master’s degrees— ultimately completing her Ph.D. in English literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Kathy joined Western’s English Department in the fall of 1991 as a specialist in British Romantic literature. Additionally, she taught courses in science and literature, intermedial art, epic poetry, the nineteenth-century novel, scriptural literatures, and literary and cultural studies. Students readily enrolled in all of these classes and praised Kathy’s clear teaching; the breadth of her knowledge; her ability to explain complex theoretical ideas; her facilitation of lively discussions; and her attention to, and respect for, her students.
Kathy’s research extends to a wide range of Romantic authors and subjects, but she has also written articles and book chapters on literature and science, intermedial art, and scriptural texts. Kathryn Trueblood writes, “In her book Knight of the Living Dead: William Blake and the Problem of Ontology, Kathy shows how Blake creates an epistemological alternative to empiricism and rationalism in his poetry and art.” After the publication of her book, Kathy focused on research devoted to Romantic texts within the larger context of astronomy and astronomical discoveries, including the work of William Herschel. Herschel had developed a telescope that was the largest in the world for fifty years, and in “Herschel’s Forty-Foot Telescope 1789,” Kathy demonstrates how the implications of his tool for gazing at the stars extended well beyond the sciences. Kathy’s most recent article, published in 2019 in Pacific Coast Philology, was titled, “Wordsworth’s Despotic Eye,” and was part of a special edition on Ways of Seeing: Visuality, Visibility, and Vision.
Kathy’s commitment to her scholarship, and to the community of scholars of which she was a part, was also reflected in her service to the Pacific Ancient and Modern Languages Association. She served as the President of PAMLA in 2007 and chaired the Site Committee when PAMLA’s annual conference was hosted by WWU in 2002 and 2007. Many conference attendees remember Kathy’s Presidential address in 2007 when she presented her paper entitled, “A Wrinkle in Space: The Romantic Disruption of the English Cosmos.” In this address she discussed the ways in which Blake was troubled by Isaac Newton’s cosmology and offered what he saw as an ethical alternative to Newton’s paradigm. Kathy demonstrated the breadth of her interdisciplinary scholarship by discussing the astronomy and astrology of the period, competing theories of cosmologies, and how these relate, today, to contemporary physics and string theory.
In the English Department, Kathy served tenures as both associate chair and departmental chair. In these leadership positions, she engaged faculty and students collaboratively–and with her characteristic professionalism and kindness. Her tenure in the English Department was distinguished by mentoring new faculty, guiding curricular reform, overseeing faculty through the tenure and promotion process, improving the advising system for students and faculty, and attending to the various personnel issues that arise in a large department. Additionally, Kathy mentored post-doctoral instructors through the Keats-Shelley Association mentoring program and participated as a grant referee for the AAUW (American Association of University Women).
This short tribute has provided an overview of some of Kathy’s many academic achievements, but we would be remiss not to remember Kathy as our friend. Those who knew her loved her biting sense of humor; her cleverness; her love of dance, including salsa and ballroom dancing; the stuffed “Yeats tygers” she had in her office; her devotion to her kitty, Felicity; and the hilarious annual holiday letter she wrote to family and friends, penned from Felicity’s point of view. There was so much to love in this dear and devoted colleague. We will miss her so. Kathy is survived by her loving family in Eugene, Oregon; the WWU community; her Bellingham friends; and the many academic communities she cultivated far and wide.
