Richard A. Macksey, Professor in the Department of Comparative Thought and Literature from 1957 to 2017, was a legend in his fields of critical theory, comparative literature, and film studies and a leader in the humanities overall.

An award-winning teacher, Macksey co-founded the Johns Hopkins Humanities Center in 1966 as a meeting ground and incubator for problems, ideas, and discussions across disciplines. He read and wrote in six languages, and maintained a celebrated library of more than 70,000 books and manuscripts in his home. This collection covers every genre in just about every language, and includes rare books, first editions, and association copies.

After beginning his undergraduate studies at Princeton, he transferred to Hopkins and earned a bachelor’s degree in 1953 and master’s degree in 1954, both in Writing Seminars. He went on to earn a doctorate in comparative literature from Hopkins in 1957, and joined the Hopkins faculty in 1958. He served as Humanities Center director from 1970 until 1982 and was a professor on its faculty until his retirement in 2010. He also held joint appointments in Writing Seminars and in the School of Medicine’s History of Medicine department.

Macksey, who penned or edited dozens of volumes of scholarly works, fiction, poetry, and translation, is renowned as one of the conveners of the groundbreaking international symposium called “The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man,” held at Hopkins in 1966. It was the first time that many leading figures of European structuralist criticism—including Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Roland Barthes, and Paul de Man—presented their ideas to the American academic community, placing Hopkins at the center of intellectual conversation.

Macksey received Hopkins’ George E. Owen Teaching Award in 1992, the Distinguished Alumni Award in 1999, and the Hopkins Heritage Award in 2010. In 1999, the Richard A. Macksey Professorship for Distinguished Teaching in the Humanities was established, endowed by Edward T. Dangel III ’64 and his wife, Bonni Widdoes. Macksey was the longtime comparative literature editor of Modern Language Notes published by Johns Hopkins University Press, and a Richard A. Macksey Graduate Student Fellowship helped run the Honors Program in the Humanities for many years.

He passed away on Monday, July 22, 2019 at the age of 87. 

Learn About How The Macksey Symposium Began

In 2020, Hopkins alum Robert Friedman generously endowed funds to inaugurate and support the Richard Macksey Undergraduate Humanities Research Symposium. His inspiration for this gift was the first university professor to encourage his love for the humanities, Professor Macksey:

In one way I was lucky: two of my high school English teachers knew of the excellence of the humanities at Johns Hopkins.  Both were avid fans of John Barth’s novels and knew Barth helmed the Writing Seminars at Hopkins, and one had been mentored by a Hopkins PhD in English.  The rankings on JHU’s humanities programs were as superb then as now, in history, art history, Romance languages, German, English, and creative writing.

But I was undisciplined at that age.  Realizing quickly that I needed something other than the intense academics for which JHU was famed, I confided in my student advisor.  He offered a suggestion that would salvage my undergraduate experience: “You ought to meet Richard Macksey, the head of the Humanities department.  He’s amazingly brilliant and has a great sense of humor.”

The tag end of those comments was the most enticing.  So that very afternoon, I impulsively left a humorous introductory note on Professor Macksey’s desk.  The next day an official interdepartmental envelope arrived in my mail slot.  Surely it was a reprimand from a university official for my impertinence.  “How dare you leave such a frivolous note on a renowned scholar’s desk.  Richard Macksey founded the Humanities Center.  He hosted the famous structuralist conference of 1966.  Gather your belongings and vacate the premises.”

I opened it.  Inside, scripted in black felt pen, was a hilarious response from Dr. Macksey.  This began a back and forth of funny notes.  Yes, I had found the right academic advisor.

For the next four years, Dick Macksey sponsored numerous independent studies, allowing me to research topics of fascination that few if any professors would have allowed.  And he quietly offered behind-the-scenes support.  Through his subtle steering, I could enjoy and partake in the excellence of the humanities at Johns Hopkins. 

Even better, Dick remained my friend for the next forty years. 

So this symposium honors Richard Macksey for two reasons.  He was one of the greatest academic humanists in the world—a famed polymath, influential and longstanding editor of MLN’s humanities edition, mentor, gracious host of countless social events in his beautiful home, and owner of an astounding private book collection (70,000 by the end, and believe me, he knew where every edition was located).  But Dick was more than a brilliant scholar: he was a generous person, a man who never paraded his immense learning, who cared about others’ well-being.  He offered much needed support to me without any motive other than kindness.  It’s an honor to celebrate his sixty years at Johns Hopkins.

R. L. Friedman