Re: CLASSICS-L Digest - 21 Jul 2019 to 22 Jul 2019 (#2019-158)

Is this available online somewhere for me to share on Twitter?

On Mon., Jul. 22, 2019, 12:22 p.m. Ralph Mathisen, <[email protected]> wrote:

> An obituary for Mike Clover, who passed away recently....
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> In memoriam
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> Frank Metlar “Mike” Clover
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> Frank. M. Clover, or “Mike” as he always was known, died in Madison,
> Wisconsin, on Saturday July 13, 2019, after a very brief illness. He was
> born on May 5, 1940, in Denver, Colorado. He received his BA from the
> University of Wisconsin in 1962, his MA from the University of Chicago in
> 1964, and a PhD in Classics, also from Chicago, in 1966, where he wrote a
> dissertation entitled “Geiseric the Statesman: A Study of Vandal Foreign
> Policy” under the direction of Stewart Oost. Immediately afterward he was
> hired to teach Roman history at the University of Wisconsin as the
> colleague of Charles Edson; two years later in 1968, he also received a
> joint appointment in Classics. He was promoted to Associate Professor in
> 1971 and Full Professor in 1978, from which position he retired in 2000.
>
> Along with the de rigueur big undergraduate lectures on “The Ancient Near
> East and Greece” and “Ancient Rome,” Mike particularly enjoyed teaching a
> class of his own design, “The Rise of Barbarian Europe,” which manifested
> his personal interest in the barbarian successors of the Roman Empire. Mike
> was a true believer in audience participation. I particularly recall the
> time when he had his undergrads put on a performance of Aristophanes’
> comedy “The Congresswomen.” Let’s just say that the costumes were a hoot
> and it was a truly wonderful learning experience.
>
> For many of us, however, Mike was at his best as a graduate instructor.
> The 1970s were the glory years for Mike’s Late Antiquity program, with a
> gaggle of PhD students in the history department including Tom Barcz, Doug
> Burgess, Mohammed Jerary, Stuart Karren, Ralph Mathisen, Gerry Max, and Ron
> Weber, along with Classics students such as Jeff Buller, Kathy Grogan, Joel
> Relihan, Avery and Carl Springer, and Susan Stevens. On Wednesday
> afternoons we would assemble in Mr. Edson’s study for one of Mike’s
> seminars, on topics ranging from hagiography, to Ammianus, to the Historia
> Augusta, to prosopography. Mike supervised many PhD’s, several of whom went
> on to hold university positions, including Hal Drake (1970) (UCSB), Gerry
> Max (1975), David Barry (1976), Mohammed Jerary (1976) (Libyan Cultural
> Center), Stewart Karren (1978), Ralph Mathisen (1979) (Univ. of  Illinois),
> Ron Weber (1983) (UTEP), Doug Burgess (1985) (ETSU), Gary Reger (1987)
> (Trinity College), Jeffrey Lerner (1993) (Wake Forest), Vincent Burns
> (1994), and John Shean (1998) (CUNY), not to mention Bob Cromey (1973)
> (VCU) and Clifford “C.J.” Dull (1975), who had Mr. Edson as their
> dissertation adviser but did much of their work with Mike. Meanwhile, in
> 1976, Mr. Edson was succeeded as historian of ancient Greece by Ken Sacks,
> who had just received a PhD from Berkeley and fit right in to the Wisconsin
> regime; he remained a close colleague of Mike’s until he departed for Brown
> University in 1995.
>
> Mike’s main book publication, which remains the standard work on the
> topic, was Flavius Merobaudes: A Translation and Historical Commentary
> (1971), dealing with a Frankish barbarian who participated fully in Roman
> literary culture. Throughout his career, Mike continued working on his
> beloved Vandals book project. But stuff kept getting in the way. Mike never
> saw an interesting topic that he didn’t want to pursue. So the book project
> was a constant presence in the background while he pursued a multitude of
> other topics, many of them related to the whole can of worms involving the
> Historia Augusta, with studies on Commodus the poet, Olympiodorus of
> Thebes, an epithalamium on the emperor Gallienus, and the Latin Anthology.
> At the same time, he continued to churn out smaller, more discrete, studies
> on the Vandals, which in 1993 coalesced into an edited volume, The Late
> Roman West and the Vandals. Mike already had edited another volume,
> Tradition and Innovation in Late Antiquity, in 1989.
>
> Following his retirement, Mike continued his scholarly endeavors. Every
> year, we could expect to receive from him a survey of all the latest Late
> Antiquity bibliography, and he never was too busy to referee submissions to
> the Journal of Late Antiquity. In sum, with 52 entries in “Regesta
> imperii,” the standard Literature Database for the Middle Ages, and 27 in
> L’année philologique, the standard Classical Bibliography, Mike bridged the
> gap between the ancient and Medieval worlds, and was one of the prime
> movers in the development of an entirely new period of history, “Late
> Antiquity.”
>
> Mike was a regular participant at conferences and research centers. Not
> many academics are able to give effective extemporaneous presentations, but
> Mike was the exception. His conference papers were a marvel to behold,
> always extemporaneous and usually based on a small selection of texts or
> images that were impeccably described and analyzed. His off-campus
> appointments saw him as a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at
> Princeton (1973-1974), a Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington
> (1982-1983), a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Society
> (1991 and 1994), and a Visiting Scholar at the Univ. of Arizona (1999). His
> other awards included an ACLS Fellowship (1973-1974). In professional
> organizations, Mike served as Chair of the Committee on Ancient History of
> the American Philological Association (1995-1996), but his most stellar
> activity involved the Byzantine Studies Conference. After helping to get it
> off the ground in 1975, he served as Vice President and then had two terms
> as President (1983-1985), an office in which he was followed by his
> students Susan Stevens (1995-1996) and Ralph Mathisen (1997-1998), creating
> quite a late antique dynasty. Later in life, Mike became a bit reluctant to
> travel, often as a result of health concerns. But occasionally, persistent
> colleagues and friends were able to prevail upon him to go off on an
> excursion, as when he was lured to the University of Illinois in 2010 by a
> Late Antiquity symposium in his honor.
>
> On a personal level, Mike always went by the moniker “Mike,” never by that
> other name. Based on his middle initial “M,” I’m sure most of us thought
> that his middle name must be “Michael.” Wrong. It was Metlar. Where the
> “Mike” came from, I have no idea. He had several favorite locutions. His
> standard greeting to his grad students was, “Hiya, tiger!” His typical
> response after receiving a dissertation chapter or draft of an article was
> “Full steam ahead!” When confronted by disappointment, he would blurt out,
> “Nuts!” And one might want to ask Hal Drake why, for 50 years, he signed
> his letters and emails, “Enchiladas forever!”
>
> Mike’s sweet demeanor left a broad circle of those whose lives he touched,
> and he was one of the most tolerant, obliging, and understanding
> individuals one could ever get to know. In the fall of 1968, soon after
> he’d begun teaching at Wisconsin, Mike got a baptism by fire in the first
> meeting of his Survey of Roman History class. A group of anti-war
> protestors tried to hijack the class and turn it into a discussion of the
> war. Mike, always tolerant and accommodating, was prepared to discuss the
> matter, but the students were having none of it. Shouting out “keep it the
> way it is!”, the class took a vote. And yes, the vast majority of students
> preferred to “keep it the way it is.”
>
> Mike made everyone feel welcome and valued. For some reason, he attracted
> grad students who stuttered – I can think of several, present company
> included. We sensed in him a kindred spirit and felt right at home. And he
> and his wife Dottie were greatly valued for welcoming the spouses of his
> grad students into the fold. Mike’s wry folksy humor was legendary. He was
> a wonderful raconteur, especially if there was beer on tap. On one occasion
> when a grad student asked for advice about how to write a travel grant, he
> replied that once when he wanted to visit North Africa, “All I wanted to do
> was look around. So I said I wanted to make a topographical survey.” And it
> worked.
>
> Working with Mike, one never felt any pressure to produce. That
> dissertation could take as long as it needed! Mike was not going to bug you
> about it. At the same time, though, Mike implicitly believed in his
> students, and had faith that they would do well. I was a bit daunted when
> he suggested that I, a callow grad student barely in his third year, submit
> an abstract for the first Byzantine Studies Conference. My initial response
> was “no way.” But his gentle encouragement overcame my doubts, and I trust
> I didn’t disappoint.
>
> Anyone who knew Mike was aware of his great devotion to his family, as
> attested by his lengthy Christmas updates – which usually arrived the
> following July, and were full of family activities and achievements of
> which he was inordinately proud. In 1965 Mike married Dorothy Helen Wagner,
> who died in 1992. He is survived by two sons of this union, Charles, born
> in 1968, and his wife Rachel, and Walter, born in 1972, and his wife
> Belita; also by his grandchildren Jaya Clover, Helena Clover Santos, and
> Cameron Clover Santos; by his sister and brother-in-law Judy and Tom
> Bullington; and by his partner Eileen Cumming and her daughter Heather
> Cumming and husband Topher, and their children Griffin and Isabel.
>
> His family requests that memorial donations be directed to the University
> of Wisconsin Foundation and marked for the History Department at UW Madison
> in the name of Dorothy Wagner Clover, or to the First Congregational Church
> in Madison.  A Memorial Service will be held at 6 p.m. on Monday, July 22nd
> in the Chapel at the First Congregational Church, 1609 University Avenue.
>
> Macte virtute Mike, parens karissime atque amantissime!
>
>
>
> Ralph Mathisen, with contributions from the family and friends of Mike
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> ________________________________
> From: Classical Greek and Latin Discussion Group <[email protected]>
> on behalf of CLASSICS-L automatic digest system <[email protected]>
> Sent: Monday, July 22, 2019 3:00 AM
> To: [email protected] <[email protected]>
> Subject: CLASSICS-L Digest - 21 Jul 2019 to 22 Jul 2019 (#2019-158)
>
> There are 2 messages totaling 31 lines in this issue.
>
> Topics of the day:
>
>   1. In memoriam Mike  Clover
>   2. In memoriam Mike Clover
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date:    Sun, 21 Jul 2019 12:34:10 +0000
> From:    Ralph Mathisen <[email protected]>
> Subject: In memoriam Mike  Clover
>
> Dear all. Attached is an obituary of Mike Clover, whom many of you knew
> either in person or by reputation. He died suddenly last weekend. There is
> a memorial service at 6 p.m. on Monday, July 22nd (tomorrow) in the Chapel
> at the First Congregational Church, 1609 University Avenue for those of you
> who might be in the neighborhood. He will be remembered and missed by all
> those whose lives he touched.
>
> All best regards, Ralph Mathisen
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date:    Sun, 21 Jul 2019 13:37:54 +0100
> From:    Ralph Hancock <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: In memoriam Mike Clover
>
> Sorry, attachments don't work on the list. You have to put plain text in
> the body of the message, or give the URL of a web version.
>
> RH
>
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> End of CLASSICS-L Digest - 21 Jul 2019 to 22 Jul 2019 (#2019-158)
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