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Faculty Associates
Information Sheet:
Brian Walter (b. September 7, 1966) E-mail: bdwalter@artsci.wustl.edu
http://artsci.wustl.edu/~bdwalter
(teaching and profession site) or |
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Hometown: Before moving to St.
Louis in 1988, the two cities where I’d lived the longest were Denver, Colorado
and Portland, Oregon.
Education: B. A. in English, Reed
College, 1988; M. A. (1989) and Ph. D. in English and American Literature,
Washington University, 1995.
Family: Wife Lynnea Brumbaugh-Walter,
Lecturer for the Olin School of Business and fellow Ph. D. in English (also
from Wash. U.); 9-year-old son Vladimir (Wolf), adopted from Novosibirsk,
Russia in November 2002; and 3-year-old daughter Harper adopted from Hunan
Province, China in November 2000. Also, four cats: Peanut, Philemon (Philo),
Baucis, and Waif.
Hobbies: Books and movies (I teach
literature and film courses), photography, videography, HTML and web-page
maintenance, basketball, juggling. (Also, of course – and more than anything
else – our burgeoning family.)
Some favorite writers: Shakespeare,
Nabokov, Dickinson, Melville,
Donald Harington
, Toni Morrison, Robert Frost, May Swenson, J. R. R. Tolkien, Primo Levi,
Oliver Sacks, Garry Trudeau.
Five books that changed my life:
The Ecology of Eden, by Evan Eisenberg; My Traitor’s Heart
, by Rian Malan; The Drowned and the Saved
, by Primo Levi; Lolita,
by Vladimir Nabokov; and The Lord of the Rings
, by J. R. R. Tolkien.
Some favorite movies: Pelle the
Conqueror, Modern Times
, Children in War,
To Live.
The best movies I saw this summer (2003)
: Lilya 4-ever, Swimming Pool
, and Whale Rider.
Some favorite musicians, musical works, and genres
: U2, Tori Amos, the Beatles, Eric Clapton, Gorecki’s third symphony, Mozart,
Byzantine and Russian Orthodox chant, Rush, Bonnie Raitt, B. B. King, They
Might be Giants, the Talking Heads, Little Feat, Anonymous4, and Peter Gabriel.
Some favorite St. Louis restaurants
: Addis (Ethiopian), Al-Tarboush Deli/Market (Lebanese), Salvato’s, House
of India.
Some Favorite St. Louis spots: Forest
Park, the Botanical Gardens, the local playgrounds with swingsets and/or
merry-go-rounds.
Places abroad that I have visited
: England, China, and Russia.
Places abroad that I hope someday to visit
: Vietnam, Kenya, Cambodia, Ireland, Norway, Turkey, India, Italy (and everywhere
else, of course).
Some favorite undergraduate courses
: Humanities (Ancient and Classical Greece & Rome), Prose Stylistics,
History of Theatre, The French Revolution, Spanish, Shakespearean Tragedy.
If I weren’t a professor: I’d probably
be an editor. Otherwise, I might be working in computers or perhaps even
in photography or film-making.
Why a Faculty Associate? I was
blessed with numerous friendly, open, and personable professors as an
undergraduate
, superb scholars and teachers who nevertheless refused to stand on empty
ceremony or hide themselves behind their degrees when dealing with students.
Serving as a Faculty Associate will provide me with even more opportunities
to repay some of my debt to these professors, trying to pass along their generous
example to this generation of students.
Advice for Residents:
“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost. . .”