September 5, 2003

Loyola mourns the loss of a gentleman, knight, and scholar

On June 4, Loyola lost Julian N. Wasserman, Ph.D., one of its best and brightest professors. His death came just four days before what would have been his 55^th birthday. Wasserman had been suffering from a rare blood disorder.

Born in Lubbock, Texas, Wasserman grew up in and around Dallas. After earning a history degree from Vanderbilt University, Wasserman earned a master's degree in English from Southern Methodist University and completed his doctorate at Houston's prestigious Rice University. He was an avid scholar of literature, with a particular passion for Chaucer and all things medieval.

Wasserman came to Loyola in 1985. He set himself apart in his willingness to communicate his passion for literature to his students. By drawing witty and unlikely connections between pop culture icons such as Elvis and Monty Python and medieval literary works like The Canterbury Tales, Wasserman made his field come alive with joy and enthusiasm. He sought to make his students intimately engaged with the object of study, to personally discover, as he had, the parallels that bind human lives and minds across cultures and centuries.

While at Loyola, Wasserman helped establish the Medieval Studies program and organized LEH teacher institutes and summer programs for students that combined books about monsters with serious literary study. He also gave freely of his time as a volunteer tutor at Lusher Elementary. A winner of the 1995 Dux Academicus, and two-time winner of the Alumni Association Award for Excellence in teaching, Wasserman demonstrated a boundless passion for teaching and love for his students that stayed with him until his final days.

Wasserman is survived by his wife Susan, and his daughter and son.