James Olney

James Olney died February 4, 2015, in Irvine, California. He had retired in 2003 from LSU, where for twenty years he co-edited the Southern Review. As Voorhies Professor of English, James achieved distinction in several fields, including African Literature, African American Literature, and Modern Poetry. He was the veritable founder of modern autobiography studies, to which he contributed the ground-breaking books Metaphors of Self (1972) and Memory and Narrative (1999), the latter a winner of the Christian Gauss Award from Phi Beta Kappa. With co-editor Lewis Simpson he organized a 1985 conference attended by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren that celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the Southern Review. James was a beloved graduate mentor to many doctoral students while at LSU, and he was cherished in the English Department as a colleague of generosity, integrity, and wide-ranging intellect. He leaves behind his wife Laura O'Connor, a professor of English at the University of California, Irvine; a daughter, Marina, 15; and from a prior marriage, a son, Nathan, 39, who works in the film industry in New Orleans. Born July 12, 1933, James grew up in Marathon, Iowa. He received his BA from the University of Iowa and his Ph.D. in English from Columbia University in 1963. He taught for four years at Drake University and then accepted a Fulbright appointment in Liberia, which he extended into a two-year stay. That experience inspired his book Tell Me Africa (1973) and led to a faculty appointment at North Carolina Central University in Durham. During his tenure at NCCU, James edited Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical (1980) and authored a book on William Butler Yeats and Carl Jung titled The Rhizome and the Flower (1980). After coming to LSU, he wrote or edited eight more books on topics from T. S. Eliot to African American literature. In recognition of his work on French autobiography, he held a joint appointment at LSU as a Professor of French and Italian. His other honors included fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Humanities Center. In 2000 he also received the LSU Distinguished Research Master Award, and culminating his brilliant career, he was elected the following year to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. James cared deeply about equality and devoted much of his career to breaking down racial and cultural prejudices. A man of great achievement and greater modesty, he was an example to all who knew him. His burial will take place later this month in his Iowa hometown. To honor his memory, friends may contribute (through the LSU Foundation) to the Southern Review or to the Literary Circle of LSU, which underwrites the annual James Olney Distinguished Dissertation Award.