Charlie Junkerman in England

Charlie Junkerman received his PhD in Comparative Literature from UC-Berkeley and came to Stanford in 1983 to teach in the Western Culture Program.  In 1986, he moved into academic administration, serving successively as Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Associate Director of the Stanford Humanities Center, Associate Dean of Continuing Studies, and, for the last 25 years before going emeritus, Associate Provost and Dean of Continuing Studies.  In this latter capacity, he built six large programs with a combined staff of 170 and a budget of $45 million.  In 2009 he was awarded the Kenneth Cuthbertson Prize for extraordinary contributions to Stanford.

Throughout his years at Stanford, Charlie has taught a range of courses on European and American literature, with special interests in 19th-century English and American Romanticism (Wordsworth, Emerson, Thoreau). He has also written and lectured on Scottish history, British mountaineering, 19th-century landscape painting, Irish literature, and Native American photography. Charlie has taught in South Korea, acted as a mentor in a half-way house in Redwood City, participated in Northern Irish peace initiatives, and served as an advisor to Indian tribes in Oklahoma on issues regarding repatriation of artifacts. 

Charlie remembers fondly walking in eastern England and is eager to return to thinking about young Darwin at Cambridge, collecting beetles in “The Backs,” and Constable on his beloved river Stour and “skying” on Hampstead Heath.  “Walking is always exhilarating, and to do it across the subtle East Anglian landscape is an extraordinary opportunity,” notes Charlie.