James E. Miller Jr. made his scholarly reputation with studies of American authors ranging from Walt Whitman to T.S. Eliot, and he brought the country's literary tradition to life for three decades of University of Chicago students.
Miller, the Helen A. Regenstein Professor Emeritus of English, died of kidney failure and sepsis at his home in Hyde Park on Sept. 9, his 90th birthday.
His wife, Kathleen Farley, said Miller took delight in being reminded of his roles as author and editor, even after Alzheimer's disease had erased many of his other memories. He would gaze at a long shelf of books bearing his name and repeat, "I read books, I taught books, I wrote books. I can't live without writing a book."
Miller was born on Sept. 9, 1920, in Bartlesville, Okla., and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Oklahoma in 1942. He took pride in his Oklahoma roots during the Great Depression, when he first discovered his love affair with books. His roots influenced his teaching style as well; students remembered that he would sometimes break into union songs, Dust Bowl blues and selections from the musical "Oklahoma."
While serving as a cryptographer for the U.S. Army during World War II, Miller met and married Moline, Ill. native Barbara Anderson (1921-81). After the war, he enrolled at the University of Chicago on the G.I. Bill, receiving his master's degree in 1947 and Ph.D. in American literature in 1949. As a professor at the University of Nebraska from 1953 to 1961, his efforts to reinvigorate the English Department were recognized when he was appointed department chair at age 36. He returned to the UChicago faculty in 1962, served as chair of English from 1978 to 1984 and retired in 1990.
His first book, A Critical Guide to Leaves of Grass, won the Walt Whitman Award of the Poetry Society of America in 1958. Start with the Sun: Studies in the Whitman Tradition (1960),co-authored with Karl Shapiro and Bernice Slote, won the Poetry Chap-Book Award of the Poetry Society of America.
As an Americanist, Miller studied a wide range of authors, including Herman Melville, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James and T. S. Eliot. Miller's early work on J.D. Salinger was among the first of its kind to be published, and he remained especially interested in living American writers. His two-volume Heritage of American Literature, published in 1991 with the assistance of his second wife Kathleen Farley, marked the culmination of his work in American letters.
Miller's collaboration with Scott Foresman on a literature series for secondary school students touched generations of young readers, colleagues said. Fellow editor Edmund Farrell, emeritus professor of English education at the University of Texas at Austin, recalled that Miller "believed, as do I, that at the center of English is the subject of literature, and that at its pedagogical center is the education of the imagination through the teaching of literature."
Miller's many professional activities, offices and awards include a Fulbright fellowship in 1958-59, the presidency of the Midwest Modern Language Association (1961-62), a Guggenheim fellowship in 1969, and in 1975 the National Council of Teachers of English Distinguished Service Award. The editor of College English from 1960 to 1966, Miller was an editorial adviser as well to the journals Prairie Schooner, American Literature, Walt Whitman Quarterly, Modern Philology, Critical Inquiry, Studies in American Fiction and American Poetry. A frequent ambassador of American letters abroad, Miller lectured and taught in Italy, Japan, Australia, France, Hungary and China, where he delivered the inaugural address at the Whitman 2000 conference held in Beijing.
His students fondly recalled Miller's "robust laugh," his homemade bread, and his Sunday-morning ritual of making crispy bacon and huevos rancheros. David Kuebrich, AM'67, PhD'74, said Miller was a teacher of "kindness and unfailing decency" who "could make even a shy student…comfortable in his presence." Jane Novak Emery, PhD'70, said simply, "The joy trumps the sorrow. He was a great man."
In addition to his wife Kathleen, Miller is survived by a son, James Miller, of New York City; a daughter, Charlotte Miller, of Chicago; a step-daughter, Laurie Black, also of Chicago; and grandchildren Alexander, Michael and Benjamin Miller; Andrew, Rachel and step-granddaughter Lisa Fogel. A memorial service will be held later to honor his life and achievements.
—Prof. Chuan He
