4 October 2007

Honorary presentation to Dr Victor Skretkowicz

Photo opportunity - 6 pm, Friday October 5th.
New Teaching Block, Heathfield (off Old Hawkhill)
Presentation to Dr Skretkowicz

Dr Victor Skretkowicz, a Senior Lecturer in the English department at the University of Dundee who is set to retire at the end of this month, will be honoured by the University and the International Sidney Society at a major literary conference in Dundee tomorrow (Friday October 5th)

Dr Skretkowicz has taught English at the University for almost thirty years. He was diagnosed around two years ago as suffering from Motor Neurone Disease.

He will be presented with an Honorary Readership from the University, which will be presented by Professor Christopher Whatley, Vice-Principal of the University and Head of the College of Arts & Social Sciences.

Professor Mary-Ellen Lamb, of Southern Illinois University, will present Victor with the Jean Robertson Lifetime Achievement award from the International Sidney Society.

Dr Skretkowicz has published widely and is an international authority on the subject of early modern romance and Renaissance literature generally. His specialist research interests include the work of the Sidney family, Shakespeare, Marlowe and their contemporaries; the politics and cultural interpretations of rhetoric; and Erotic Romance.

He is the editor of the major critical edition of Sir Philip Sidney’s The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia (The New Arcadia) for Oxford English Texts. He was also the Research Director of the electronic Dictionary of the Scots Language (http://www.dsl.ac.uk). He also edited the standard edition of Florence Nightingale’s Notes on Nursing for the Royal College of Nursing in 1992.

The presentation to Dr Skretkowicz takes place at the `Romance’ conference being held at the University over Friday and Saturday and which has been organised in his honour by colleagues in the English department.

The conference has attracted international experts to give presentations in the field of early modern romance and Renaissance literature, an area of Victor’s speciality.

"It is a measure of the respect in which Victor is held that we have people coming from around the world for this conference," said Professor Peter Kitson, one of Victor’s colleagues at Dundee who has helped organise the event.

"His contributions to this particular field of literature have been immense and it is only right that he should be honoured in this way."

The `Romance’ conference takes place in the new teaching block at the University of Dundee on October 5th and 6th. For further information on the conference contact c.murray@dundee.ac.uk

NOTES TO EDITORS

Motor Neurone Disease (MND) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that attacks the upper and lower motor neurones. Degeneration of the motor neurones leads to weakness and wasting of muscles, causing increasing loss of mobility in the limbs, and difficulties with speech, swallowing and breathing.

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