June 13 1967 June 22 2019
JOHN ERICKSON DEPPMAN June 13, 1967 – June 22, 2019 Share this obituary Send Flowers Sign Guestbook| Send Sympathy Card John Erickson Deppman (“Jed”), age 52, died peacefully on June 22, 2019, with his beloved family at his side. Jed was born June 13, 1967, in Washington, DC. He grew up in Middlebury, Vermont, graduated from Amherst College and earned his MA and PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. It was there he met the love of his life, Hsiu-Chuang. Early in their careers as professors, Jed and Hsiu-Chuang lived and taught in Kentucky and Texas. Together they had two wonderful daughters, Formosa and Ginger. In 2003, the family moved to Oberlin, Ohio, where they had secured ideal positions at Oberlin College. Jed was appointed Director of the Comparative Literature Program in 2003. A prominent Emily Dickinson scholar, he published his monograph Trying to Think with Emily Dickinson with UMass Press in 2008 and coedited Emily Dickinson and Contemporary Poetics (Johns Hopkins University Press 2008) and Emily Dickinson and Philosophy (Cambridge University Press 2013). He also translated and coedited Genetic Criticism: Texts and Avant-Textes (University of Pennsylvania Press 2004). He recently completed a novel Taking Chemo with Nietzsche. Jed was a dynamic and innovative teacher. In 2014, he was awarded Oberlin’s Excellence in Teaching Award and, in 2015, the Professor Props “Instructor of the Year.” He had taught many popular cross-listed courses: Introduction to Comparative Literature, European Modernism and the World, and Itineraries of Postmodernism, French Joyce, Introduction to Literary Translation and Advanced Translation Workshop: Prose and Drama. He was also known for teaching a sought-after first-year seminar Ars Moriendi: Death and the Art of Dying, which included community service components and exemplified experiential learning. Jed lived a full life. He was diagnosed with stage IV cancer in 2008, but nonetheless taught full time, travelled the world, lived abroad, and made significant contributions to the academic community. He appreciated life’s every moment and will be remembered for his deep love of his family and friends, dedication to his students, fierce intelligence, sharp sense of humor, and for his exhortation to us all to live. In his final essay “Coda: Living and Dying with Emily Dickinson” forthcoming in Oxford Handbook (eds. Cris Miller and Karen J. Sanchez-Eppler), Jed concluded with a quiet encouraging note for those now mourning his death: “We can identify impressive moments we have witnessed or imagined, work them into dynamic images, and use them to organize our attitude toward life and death. Similarly we can always rethink the limits of who and where we are. We have always been connected to so much — our loved ones, people who have died already, our childhood, our past and future selves, our past and future places — that we can always think about new ways to belong to them.” Perhaps they do not go so far / As we who stay, suppose. Emily Dickinson, 1877. In addition to his wife and two daughters, Jed is survived by his mother, Elizabeth A. McLain and her husband, John H. Fitzhugh, of West Berlin, Vermont; father John C. Deppman, and his wife Clara Yu, of Fort Myers, Florida; sister Ann A. Deppman (Vance DeBouter) of Oberlin, Ohio; brother Benjamin H. Deppman (Lesley Deppman), of Cornwall, Vermont; aunt Lynn McLain of Chestertown, Maryland; cousin Joseph Cook, of Baltimore, Maryland; and 7 nieces and nephews: Victor, Kent, Alden, John, Jack, Lydia and Calvin. In lieu of flowers the family requests that donations be made to the Program of Comparative Literature at Oberlin College in Jed’s memory or to the Colon Cancer Alliance, 1025 Vermont Ave NW, Suite 1066, Washington, DC 2005. www.BerryMcGreevey.com Berry-McGreevey & Donald Martens and Sons Funeral Home and Cremation Service 26691 Detroit Rd., Westlake, OH 44145 440-617-1911 Print Obituary Sign Guestbook Name: Location: Video: Image: Light A Candle Candle 1 Candle 2 Candle 3 Candle 4 Email: Please keep my message private Personal Message: Personal Message (required) Confirm: Submit Guestbook entry
Our most sincere sympathies to the family and friends of JOHN ERICKSON DEPPMAN June 13 1967 June 22 2019.
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Death notice for the town of: Westlake, state: Ohio