STANLEY SULTAN

I still remember you, Professor Sultan. Though it has been over 20 years since I saw you last the memories remain as fresh as yesterday. As a young black, foreign student then studying a masters degree in a US university I was most impressed by your honest and helpful feedbacks and your respect for all of us..even those students who feared your intellect. Years later, as an attorney in two countries, I still credit your engaging and analytical probing as being an integral part of both my academic and professional journey. Thank you for being you.

You were a great man Mr. Sultan and so is your wife. It is a shame you are not here anymore. I do not know you but I've heard so much about you. You and your wife are angels put on earth. You saved my dogs and my own life Mr. Sultan and for that I give you the biggest token of my appreciation and thanks for what a gift you've given me.

When he told me in 1998 that it was the best interpretation of a particular piece of literature...so sorry I never followed through and did my phd...i guess we all gave regrets in life.

Although you look just a bit different from how I remember you 45 years back as your student, your smile remains constant, as it will everlastingly. In preparing another book, this one on national encirclement as foreign policy and its consequences, I decided to include what I recall to be your favourite expression: "Who's fooling whom." In wanting to cite you by name, I looked online and learned of your passing last year. My condolences. Across my own 42 year university teaching career, many times I think of you, and although hardly was I amongst your best of students, I regard you as amongst the best of faculty anywhere, with your extraordinary dynamism.

Professor Sultan taught me how to read English poetry when I attended his class in it at Clark in the fall of 1980, having just begun working as a campus police officer there. I won't ever forget that, and later I took a graduate MA course with him; he was a friend and I am saddened to only now learn of his passing. God bless you, Stan.

I recently read of Stanley Sultan's passing after finding a copy of his book, Joyce's Metamorphosis. Stanley Sultan changed the trajectory of my life when I took his classes on James Joyce and William Butler Yeats in my years at Clark University, 1995-1999. I vividly recall how he would read the texts of writers and poets who continue to inspire me, from Wordsworth to D.H. Lawrence. His obituary came to my attention after I went looking for his contact information at Clark, because his philosophy of teaching was a source or support to me when I began teaching last year. So, even now, you continue to instruct and to guide me, Professor Sultan. I will miss him very much. I send out my thoughts and comfort to his family.

I remember well when Stanley Sultan came to Ireland for an International James Joyce Symposium and visited the Joyce Museum in the Martello Tower in Sandycove when I was the curator there. He was a great Joyce scholar and his book 'The Argument of Ulysses is excellent'. He will be sadly missed.

A friend, a mentor, an original. The world is a profoundly emptier place for his passing, but profoundly richer for his life. Good-bye buddy.

I believe I had Professor Sultan in his first year at Clark when I was a freshman. He was young, dynamic and provocative in his teaching. He challenged me and all the others in the class to reach higher, test our abilities and ask difficult questions.

Now, as I approach my 50th reunion at Clark, I send my sincere condolences to his family.

Mark Widoff
Class of 1963

I took two graduate classes with Stan in 1988 and 1989. He wrote me a letter of recommendation when I was applying to PhD programs. He was a demanding teacher, but he was also often a man of great wit and charm. I learned a great deal from him, and had hoped to see him one more time. He is, and will be, missed.

As a member of the Clark U. class of 1969, I have fond memories of Dr. Sultan, a man of strong opinions and a great sense of humor. Though I didn't realize it at the time, the education I got from Stanley and others in the English department would be critical to my sucess. I will always remember the passion he brought to everything, the twinkle in his eye, and his disinclination to suffer fools gladly.
Stanley was also a good friend of my parents, Hob and Helen Crockett, who will be sad to hear of his passing. All the best to his family. We have lost a remarkable man.

Sad to hear of his passing. Yet I'm glad to have some good memories rekindled. I studied with him as a graduate student, and I appreciated his embodiment of passionate, articulate scholarship and literary criticism. Literature matters! I also remember his good-humored but demanding sparring with "The Brits," a group of British grad students in residence at that time (1986-ish), in particular John Pitt and Christopher Cartwright. Dr. Sultan will live on in his students' memories and our lives. I pass on my deep sympathy to his family and friends who will miss him.