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Michael Dunne Obituary
Dr. Michael F. Dunne, age 71 of Murfreesboro, died Tuesday, November 27, 2012 at his home.
Dr. Dunne was the son of the late Michael Patrick and Mary Mallon Dunne.
Dr. Dunne is survived by his wife of 46 years, Dr. Sara Lewis Dunne; sons, Paul Sebastian Dunne and his wife Kirstin Tretter of Murfreesboro, and Matthew Joel Dunne and his wife Emily Martin of Washington DC; grandchildren, Henry and William Dunne; sister, Joan Grimes of Rockaway, NJ; several nieces and nephews; and numerous cousins.
Dr. Dunne graduated from Fordham University in 1964 and earned his PhD in English from LSU in 1969. He retired as an Emeritus Professor of English from MTSU in 2006, having taught for 37 years. Dr. Dunne was the author of five books on criticism and popular culture: Metapop; Hawthome's Narrative Strategies; Intertextual Encounters in American Fiction, Film and Popular Culture; American Film Musical Themes and Forms; and Calvinist Humor in American Literature. He was also the editor of the scholarly journals Border States and Studies in Popular Culture. Dr. Dunne was very active in the Murfreesboro Community and was on the board of Friends of Linebaugh Library.
A Memorial service will be 3 p.m. Saturday, December 8th at Woodfin Funeral Chapel.
Memorials may be made to the Richard and Virginia Peck Scholarship Fund at the MTSU Foundation or the Linebaugh Library in memory of Dr. Dunne.
Online condolences can be made at www.woodfinchapel.com. Woodfin Memorial Chapel, (615) 893-5151.
To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.
Memories and Condolences
for Michael Dunne
2 Entries
Kim Richie
December 1, 2012
I knew you but a short time. You will be a lifetime in my heart. Rest In Peace Dr. Dunne.
Crosby Hunt
December 1, 2012
I've never had a teacher who got more of a bang out of what he was teaching than Michael Dunne. Hawthorne, Hemmingway, Nathaniel West, Uncle Walt, Ezra Pound, good old Fitzgerald, Flannery O'COnnor-- and more more more-- and thus I got a big bang out of them too. Still do. Plus he got me through 2 degrees-thesis & dissertation and came up with the idea that I should do my diss on baseball rhetoric. Didn't know you could do such things. Thought this English field was too snobby to allow such pop culture ventures. Obviously not with Michael. I owe him a career and many of the quips and anecdotes I use in my classes today. He was also a good friend and mentor-someone fun to argue with about how theatre wasn't as silly an enterprise as he opined it was. Now that you're free from the strictures of the crueler stages of your mortal coil, perhaps the joy you found in the exquisite expressions of the human struggle have somehow, somewhere- returned.
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Woodfin Funeral Chapel - Murfreesboro1488 Lascassas Pike, Murfreesboro, TN 37130
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