We are saddened to have to report the death of Wil Verhoeven, former member of staff in the Department of English, and later in American Studies, who died of a brain tumour on 11 October 2024.
Wil was a bold and decisive person, traits which must have been apparent in his youth when he chose to leave the south of the Netherlands to study English in the far north! When I arrived in the English Department in 1991, he had already gained his PhD from Groningen (on the novels of D.H. Lawrence) and was an established, energetic member of the lecturing staff. He was also active in forging links with teachers of English in schools, publishing anthologies and co-editing a literary magazine, Diver. During my first year in Groningen, Wil was appointed Senior Lecturer (UHD) in American Literature, on the retirement of Jan Bakker, and he quickly developed a strong research profile in early American literature as well as literary and cultural theory. He was ambitious, both for himself and for the English Department, and contributed memorably to staff discussions about future plans for the programme, as well as to the series of literary conferences and other academic events held in Groningen during the 1990s. As his teaching began to focus more exclusively on American subjects, the obvious next step for his career was to move to the department of American Studies, where he later gained the chair of American Culture and Cultural Theory. During this time, he was also a visiting professor at Brown University, Rhode Island, strengthening his deep associations with the U.S.A. In 2017, Wil left Groningen after nearly forty years of studying or teaching at the university, to become Head of the School of Arts, English and Languages at Queen’s University, Belfast. He ended his career as Professor of American Studies in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics at Queen’s.
Wil was widely known and respected for his writing about, and editing of, literature from both sides of the Atlantic in the era of the French Revolution. It was from Wil that I first learnt the significance of the writer Charles Brogden Brown – something of a hero of his – and Wil’s publications undoubtedly raised the profile of many writers of the Age of Enlightenment and Revolution. He was the general editor of a series of Anti-Jacobin novels, as well as the author of Gilbert Imlay: Citizen of the World (2008) and his major work, Americomania and the French Revolution Debate in Britain, 1789-1802 (Cambridge University Press, 2013). He also edited several individual eighteenth and early-nineteenth century novels, often working jointly with his wife, Amanda Gilroy, whom he met in Groningen when she was appointed to the English Department in 1992 to fill the lectureship left vacant by his own promotion! Together they fulfilled what seemed like a Dutch version of the American Dream, living in the countryside, Amanda riding horses and Wil driving his American-style pick-up truck. They took our teasing of them about this in good part.
It is no secret that Wil was a forceful character, sometimes too forceful for the comfort of those who worked with him. He was not an easy colleague, and yet his determination and intellectual curiosity were admirable. They made his teaching dynamic and unforgettable, even if some students feared him – and dreaded the low grades he handed out to many. However, students who shared his commitment to knowledge, theory and enquiry were greatly inspired by his classes and richly rewarded with the new intellectual vistas opening up before them. He stretched their minds in unexpected and exciting ways. Many of them went on to have university careers themselves and felt that they owed their academic vocations to Wil’s influence.
Current and former colleagues and students send their condolences to Amanda, Nathan and all Wil’s family.
Helen Wilcox
(Hoogleraar Engelse Letterkunde na de Middeleeuwen en Amerikaanse Letterkunde, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, 1991-2006)