[KB] Sad News about Robert Wess

[Evelyn Burg]

Dear David and KB Society,
So very sorry to hear about Bob Wess's passing. He was a truly
brilliant Burke scholar and a deep thinker. I am so grateful to have met
him and to have communicated with him a little over the years. He was
supposed to chair a panel I was on at the last Burke conference I attended,
before the pandemic, but if I remember rightly he or his wife took a fall
and he couldn't come. He also shared some early material for the last book.

To Bob!

Evelyn Burg, LAGCC, CUNY





On Sat, Dec 3, 2022 at 5:55 PM David Blakesley <david.blakesley at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear Burkelers:
>
> I'm sorry to be the bearer of sad news. Bob Wess passed away earlier this
> week after a long and heroic battle with cancer. Bob was eighty-one. I was
> in touch with Bob until just before Thanksgiving, when he told me he was
> moving to a hospice. Bob's wife Sandra told me his health declined rapidly
> after the move.
>
> For the last six months, I was fortunate to work with Bob on his new book, *Philosophical
> Turns: Epistemological, Linguistic, and Metaphysical*, which is due out
> from Parlor Press by the end of this month. Bob got to see the final proof
> just ten days ago.
>
> Bob was exceptionally smart, one of those "scary smart" people who could
> see right to the heart of the matter. We enjoyed talking about golf. (He
> was as good on the golf course as he was with a Burke idea.) He advised me
> on which players to pick on my fantasy golf team for the past couple of
> years, so that helped. Thirty-two years ago, Bob attended my first
> presentation about KB in New Harmony, Indiana, and told me to "stick with
> it, Dave."
>
> Bob served as the President of the Kenneth Burke Society from 2005 to
> 2008. He also received the Society's Distinguished Service Award in 1999
> and the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017. Bob attended the first 1984
> conference at which the Kenneth Burke Society was formed.
>
> In addition to *Philosophical Turns*, Bob was the author of *Kenneth
> Burke: Rhetoric, Subjectivity, Postmodernism* (1996) and coeditor (with
> Jack Selzer) of *Kenneth Burke and His Circles *(2008).
>
> Bob's obituary page is here, with details pending:
> https://www.demossdurdan.com/obituaries/Robert-Wess/#!/Obituary
>
> I hope you join me in raising a glass in Bob's honor. Here's to you, Bob!
>
> Dave
>
>
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