The campus community mourns the passing of John Kirkland, who died on Tuesday, August 11, 2020. John retired in 2007 as Professor Emeritus of History after 42 years of service to Bucknell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Included below is the complete text of the\nobituary, as provided by the family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On behalf of our entire University community, I extend our\ndeepest sympathies to John\u2019s family, as well as to all who knew him at\nBucknell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
John C. Bravman
President __________________________________________________________________________ <\/p>\n\n\n\n
John Kirkland, of Columbia, S.C., son of Mary Power Kirkland and\nJohn Dermont Kirkland, born in Kosciusko, Mississippi in 1939, died at home on\nAugust 11, 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
John earned his undergraduate degree from King College, master\u2019s\nand Ph.D. in history from Duke University where he was a Teaching Fellow and a\nWoodrow Wilson Fellow. He joined the faculty at Bucknell University in 1965, where\nhis special interests were European and American intellectual history; he\nretired in 2007 as professor emeritus. He served as chair of the Bucknell\nHistory Department and was on the editorial board of Bucknell University Press\nand of the Human Studies Journal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
John described his life\u2019s work as trying to understand how\npeople make sense of their lives. He believed that one could not be a good\nteacher without being a lifelong learner, and he was passionate about both. He saw\nteaching as a collaboration with his students and his faculty colleagues, all\nlearning together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An insatiable learner, he built a significant and wide-ranging\nlibrary covering intellectual, cultural and political history; philosophy from\nthe Greeks to the present; critical and literary theory, and poetry. A master\nteacher, he was able to connect with each student generation and spent as much\ntime with students in independent studies and advising honors theses as he did\nin the formal classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When John retired in 2007 after 42 years of teaching at\nBucknell, his colleagues collected letters to him from former students of the\n60s through the \u201800s. Some sent papers they’d written for him or book lists\nhe\u2019d given them 40 years ago and still treasured. Some wrote they had chosen to\nfollow John in academic careers; all wrote of how he had changed their lives by\npushing them harder than they’d thought possible and modeling a profound\ncommitment to critical thinking and intellectual honesty no matter the subject\nor career path chosen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When he wasn\u2019t teaching, he loved reading, writing poetry,\nclassical and contemporary music, tennis, golf and European travel, especially\nto his beloved Paris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At his core was his love for his wife and children,\nunconditional and unfailing. Sara, his wife of 37 years, was the love of his\nlife and one of the people he respected most in the world. In 1964, he\ndedicated his dissertation to his three-year-old daughter, Kimberly, in the\nhope that she too would find that \u201cintellectual activity is a moral endeavor\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He is survived by his wife, Sara Gleaton Kirkland; daughter,\nKimberly Kirkland and her husband, Randolph Reis; grandsons, Evan and Liam\nKirkland Grennon; mother-in-law, Janette Gleaton, sister- and brother-inlaw,\nLynn and Edward Leslie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His son, Erik Kirkland, died on active duty in a Marine\nhelicopter crash in 1996. His sister, Bobbie Kate King, and his parents also\npre-deceased him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gifts in his memory may be made to the Erik Kirkland Memorial\nScholarship at Susquehanna University, c\/o Development Office, 514 University\nAve., Selinsgrove, PA 17870.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Memories may be shared at www.dunbarfunerals.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The campus community mourns the passing of John Kirkland, who died on Tuesday, August 11, 2020. John retired in 2007 as Professor Emeritus of History after 42 years of service to Bucknell. Included below is the complete text of the obituary, as provided by the family. On behalf of our entire University community, I extend our deepest sympathies to John\u2019s family, as well as to all who knew him at Bucknell. John C. BravmanPresident __________________________________________________________________________ John Kirkland, of Columbia, S.C., son of Mary Power Kirkland and John Dermont Kirkland, born in Kosciusko, Mississippi in 1939, died at home on August […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmemoriam.bucknell.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmemoriam.bucknell.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmemoriam.bucknell.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmemoriam.bucknell.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmemoriam.bucknell.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=518"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/inmemoriam.bucknell.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":522,"href":"https:\/\/inmemoriam.bucknell.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions\/522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmemoriam.bucknell.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmemoriam.bucknell.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmemoriam.bucknell.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}