Thanasis Maskaleris (1930-2017)

We are sad to announce the passing of Professor Emeritus Thanasis Maskaleris.

Thanasis (aka Thomas) Maskaleris was born in Arcadia, in Greece, in 1930. He immigrated to the United States at the age of 17, and went on to earn a bachelor's degree in Philosophy and English at the University of Oklahoma (1953) and a master's degree in Comparative Literature at Indiana University (1955). He taught as a lecturer at Wayne State University, Ohio Wesleyan University, St. Mary's College in Moraga, and UC Berkeley, before taking up a tenure-track position at San Francisco State in 1967, where he taught in Comparative Literature, Classics, and Creative Writing. While at SF State, he founded the Center for Modern Greek Studies (1981) and, as its inaugural director, raised the money to endow it in perpetuity (under the name "Kazantzakis Chair in Modern Greek Studies")(1983). He became professor emeritus in 1992. During his long and distinguished career, he published a number of books: Poems and Translations (1969); Kostis Palamas: A Critical Study (1972); (as co-translator) Russia, by Nikos Kazantzakis (1989); (as co-editor) An Anthology of Modern Greek Poetry (2003); The Terrestrial Gospel of Nikos Kazantzakis (2011); and My Life on the Ragged Paths of Pan: Selected Poems and Translations (2015). He died on Thanksgiving, November 23, at the age of 87.