Stanford University Press remembers an outstanding editor and intellectual.
In her time at the Press—from 1981 until 2002—Helen brought on board a remarkably impressive list of books across a broad range of the humanities, including religion and philosophy, but especially in literary studies and literary theory. Her energetic acquisitions efforts during a period of intellectual upheaval within a number of humanities disciplines enabled the Press to play a leading role in advancing critical scholarship in those areas throughout the English-speaking academic world.
Part of this success came from the caliber of the works that she acquired from individual scholars across the United States, including many from Stanford (far too many to try to name in this short notice)—scholars who responded to Helen’s remarkable command of the intellectual issues at stake in their work. Another part of the success of Helen’s endeavors derived from a group of intellectually provocative and challenging book series that she recruited and helped to shape. Finally, Helen’s work was distinguished by a number of widely influential translation projects that she commissioned or acquired from leading French, German, and Italian authors—including new or recent work by Jacques Derrida, Giorgio Agamben, Pierre Bordieu, Jean Baudrillard, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-François Lyotard, Niklas Luhmann, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Rancière, Werner Hamacher, Mieke Bal, and Hent de Vries, as well older works by Maurice Blanchot, Jean Genet, and Ernst Bloch.
Unsurprisingly, the books that Helen acquired for Stanford University Press won many awards, including the James Russell Lowell Prize, Christian Gauss Award, Rene Wellek Prize, National Jewish Book Award, Kurt Weill Prize, Salo Baron Book Award, Harry Levin Prize, Perkins Prize, Barricelli Prize, AATSEEL Award, Marraro Prize, Arisawa Memorial Award, and many MLA prizes, including three for the best first book.
Norris Pope, who was the Press’s director for much of the time that Helen was at the Press, notes that “Helen’s acquisitions efforts in the humanities were without precedent in the history of Stanford University Press, and they contributed enormously to the Press’s reputation and standing in a number of fields. The high esteem in which she was held by her authors and by scholars in many parts of the humanities was the result of her extraordinary abilities and dedication. Her work will have a lasting effect in a number of intellectual areas and on the careers of a great many authors at all stages in their careers.”
Stanford University Press is deeply grateful for Helen’s many contributions to its programs and for her wider contributions to the humanities. We join the many others who lament her tragic death.
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