Charlie Junkerman in Ireland

Charlie Junkerman has had a 40-year career at Stanford and served as associate provost and dean of continuing studies until September 2020, when he went emeritus. He continues to teach a range of courses on literature and cultural history, and many of Charlie’s scholarly interests converge on the Emerald Isle. He writes about ancient stone architecture for Stonexus magazine and has visited the major Irish archaeological sites, from Newgrange to Dun Aonghasa, many times. For 20 years, he has taught courses on W.B. Yeats, John Millington Synge, Brian Friel and Seamus Heaney and has been involved in theatrical productions of Friel, Wilde and Beckett. In the early 2000s, he was active in a Stanford forgiveness project in Northern Ireland, working with local activists for peace and reconciliation after the decades of the Troubles. Charlie is also an avid walker and has rambled all over the British Isles, where—when he was lucky—the road rose to meet him, and the wind was at his back.

Positions:

• Dean of Continuing Studies, emeritus, 2020–present

• Associate Provost and Dean of Continuing Studies, 1998–2020

• Associate Director, Stanford Humanities Center, 1990–1995

• Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Studies, 1986–1990

• Resident Fellow, Madera House, 1984–1992

• President, Stanford Historical Society, 2010–2012

Publications and Presentations:

• Co-editor, John Cage: Composed in America (University of Chicago Press, 1994)

• Co-Producer, Stanford Summer Theater 1997-2018

• Guest curator, “100 Stones/100 Days,” Cantor Center, 2006

• “A Biography of Stanford Sandstone,” STONEXUS, XIV, 2016

• “Practicing Receptivity to Whatever Comes: Thoreau and Cage” (forthcoming)

Accolades:

• Cuthbertson Prize for extraordinary contributions to Stanford, 2009

Academic History:

• BA, English, University of Wisconsin

• PhD, University of California–Berkeley