Stephen J. Brown, who taught in the Mason English Department from its early years until 1994, died in Washington, D.C., on July 23, 2011. Brown was a scholar of the English Renaissance and the author of pioneering scholarship on gender and sexuality in Shakespeare, and on Shakespeare's role in American culture.
After a stint teaching at George Washington University, Professor Brown came to George Mason University in 1968 as an associate dean. A devoted teacher, Brown felt the pull of the classroom anew and returned to teaching in Mason's English Department, where he was a faculty member during its formative years and up until 1994, when he retired. Notable essays by Professor Brown include his 1976 critical study of the place of Shakespeare in the US, "The Uses of Shakespeare in America: A Study in Class Domination," and a study of cross-dressing in Shakespeare's plays in the 1990 essay "The Boyhood of Shakespeare's Heroines: Notes on Gender Ambiguity in the Sixteenth Century."
A 1950 graduate of Yale University, Brown went on to study at Clare College, Cambridge, served in the army for two years, and then received his PhD from Yale in 1959.
In addition to his teaching and scholarship, Professor Brown was a lifelong political activist in Washington, D.C., working for gay rights and a Kennedy delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1968.
Colleague in Renaissance Studies Denise Albanese recalls, "Steve was a formidable and unforgettable colleague, a one-of-a-kind mix of patrician and progressive. He was someone who danced with Jacqueline Bouvier (and found her "exquisite") and taught the country soldiers whom he commanded (and who might well have beaten him up had they known he was "queer") how to read; ; who poured you a perfect martini from a family heirloom shaker while denouncing William Buckley, an enemy from Yale days and a continuing irritant. I am reminded of that line from Pound: 'They will come no more/The old men with beautiful manners.'"
Donations in memory of Dr. Brown may be made to the The George Mason University Libraries Endowment for Excellence Fund.
August 26, 2011