A Tribute to Lucy McCallum Schwartz (August 14, 1944—December 19, 2009)

Annabelle Rea1 1 A Tribute to Lucy McCallum Schwartz (August 14, 1944—December 19, 2009) Annabelle Rea For many ofus, Lucy Schwartz was a very good friend, always there to help when a job needed doing, a question required an answer, or a conference slot, filling. She never sought the spotlight, preferring to do her work quietly and well. Her friends looked forward to Lucy and Paul's annual Christmas letters, with their family photos, sharing the good news as well as the bad. Lucy's honesty about her final illness and her unfailing courage as the terrible struggle continued over several years, made it so much easier for others to talk about it. Raymonde Bulger, a longtime friend who attended the memorial service for Lucy in Buffalo, N.Y. on January 5, 2010, saw those characteristics at work in the peaceful, modest gathering, planned in detail by Lucy a year before her death. Honesty, directness, courage, and generosity epitomize not only her personal relationships but her professional contributions as well. In her Harvard dissertation, completed in 1972, Lucy explored the writing of Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, "Sainte-Beuve and the roman intime: A Thematic Study." Later, like many of us in that decade with its new wave of feminism, she discovered women writers and never looked back. She published on a number of those writers: Claire de Duras and Juliane de Krüdener, for French Women Writers: a Bio-Bibliographical Source Book (edited by Eva Sartori and Dorothy Zimmerman, Greenwood, 1991) and The Feminist Encyclopedia ofFrench Literature (edited by Eva Sartori, Greenwood, 1999). For the Dictionnaire littéraire des femmes de langue française (edited by Christiane Makward and Madeleine Cottenet-Hage, Karthala, 1996), she returned to Duras, as well as contributing entries on Isabelle de Charrière and Adélaïde de Souza. There were also essays on Christiane Rochefort, Françoise Sagan, Nathalie Sarraute, and, even farther from her dissertation topic, Aminata Sow Fall. George Sand was, however, her lasting interest. Many volumes of conference proceedings feature Lucy's work, as do George Sand Studies and the group translation of Histoire de ma vie (edited by Thelma Jurgrau, SUNY, 1990). Her major contributions came about through her daring to participate in French projects well before other Anglophone North American scholars did. She presented her research at the first Cerisy-la-Salle conference, organized by Simone Vieme in 1981 (proceedings published by SEDES in 1983). She 12Women in French Studies published a critical edition of Le Secrétaire intime in the excellent Editions de l'Aurore series in 1991. Later, in 2004, her translation ofthat edition appeared in the U.S. with Peter Lang. Sand scholars will long continue to consult this body of work. Lucy Schwartz was a pillar of Women in French. She served as the organization's Chair in 1983 during the transitional period before affiliation with the MLA, drawing up its first bylaws. In 1986, she created its newsletter and served for three years as its editor. She proposed and chaired several WIFsponsored special sessions at MLA Annual Meetings. She continued her commitment for many years through service as Nominating Committee Chair and also Co-Chair, with Sylvie Rockmore, of the Undergraduate Essay Award Committee. Former President of WIF Mary Rice-Defosse, who worked with Lucy in a number ofthose capacities and also, with Cathy Yandell, edited one of her papers for WIF Studies (special issue, 2005), sees Lucy as "the consummate scholar, possessing enormous breadth, a true professional who never lost sight ofthe personal, moral or ethical, a joy to work with." Sand studies and the WIF membership have been greatly enriched by her presence. To honor her memory, contributions may be made in her name to the George Sand Association Memorial Prize for the best doctoral dissertation on Sand (see www.hofstra.edu/georgesand7) or to the Lucy M. Schwartz Travel Abroad Fund at Salem College (601 South Church Street, Winston-Salem, NC 27101). Occidental College Selected Bibliography of Works by Lucy M. Schwartz "Re-Valuing Traditional Patrimony." Emerging Perspectives on Aminata Sow Fall: The Real and the Imaginary in Her Novels. Ed. Ada Uzoamaka Azodo. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2007...