Jeremy P. Mulderig

1950 - 2020

Jeremy P. ("Jerry") Mulderig of Chicago died peacefully on March 7, 2020, at Amita/Presence St. Joseph Hospital, from complications related to cancer. He was 69.

Mulderig was born in Kingston, PA in 1950, the first child of Gerald A. and Mary F. Mulderig. He graduated second in his class of 1968 from Central Catholic High School in Kingston. At the University of Scranton, he was Editor of The Aquinas, the University student newspaper. In 1972, shortly after his graduation with high honors from the University, he moved to Germany, as a Fulbright Fellow, for advanced study at the University of Cologne. In 1973, he entered the English doctoral program at The Ohio State University, from which he received his Ph.D. in 1978. What followed was a distinguished 40-year career of scholarship and teaching in the areas of rhetoric and writing, 19th century literature and biography, and LGBTQ studies.

Mulderig's college-level teaching career began at Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa, in 1978. He taught at Oakland University in 1981-1982, then moved to the Newcomb College of Tulane University in 1982. In 1988, he accepted a position as Associate Professor in the English Department of DePaul University. From 1990 to 1997, he was Chair of DePaul's English Department. In 2004, in recognition of his excellence in teaching he was awarded membership in the prestigious Society of Vincent de Paul Professors, and upon his retirement in 2014, he received the Via Sapientiae, the University's highest honor.

A truly gifted writer, Mulderig was the author of many published academic research papers, and of multiple editions of The Heath Handbook. In the last five years of his life, he published two books with The University of Chicago Press, in each of which he edited and annotated the writings of Samuel Steward. The first of these, Philip Sparrow Tells All, was widely reviewed, including in the New York Times. The second, The Lost Autobiography of Samuel Steward, was launched in April 2018 to high acclaim from both popular and academic reviewers, including a review in the London Review of Books published weeks before his death.

In 2004, Mulderig purchased an apartment in Berlin, and subsequently enjoyed splitting his time nearly equally between his Chicago and Berlin homes.

Family and friends are planning a memorial service to be held in Chicago at some point in the future.

Mulderig is survived by a loving family: his brother Bob Mulderig and sister-in-law Karen Garman, and nephew and niece Patrick Mulderig and Emily Mulderig, all of Washington, DC; and sister Maureen Mulderig and brother-in-law Michael Johnson of State College, PA, and step-niece and -nephew Jennifer Johnson and Bryan Johnson. Equally important, he is survived by a community of hundreds of devoted former students, academic colleagues, and friends throughout the nation and around the world, many of whom have offered testimony to the significant role Jeremy Mulderig played in their lives. His impact on this world was profound, and he is, and will be, dearly missed.