Marshall Fishwick

Marshall William Fishwick
File:VT0605241201.jpg
Born	July 5, 1923(1923-07-05) Roanoke, Virginia
Died	May 22, 2006(2006-05-22) Blacksburg, Virginia
Occupation	Professor, Journalist, Author
Literary movement	Popular culture

Marshall Fishwick (1923–2006) was a multidisciplinary scholar, professor, writer, and editor who started the academic movement known as popular culture studies and established the journal International Popular Culture. In 1970 he cofounded the Popular Culture Association with Ray B. Browne and Russel B. Nye, and the three worked to shape a new academic discipline that blurred the traditional distinctions between high and low culture, focusing on mass culture mediums like television and the Internet and cultural archetypes like comic book heroes. In an academic career of more than fifty years, Fishwick wrote or edited more than forty books, including works on popular culture, Virginia history, and American studies. Marshall William Fishwick - teacher, author, and world traveler. Marshall William Fishwick is widely regarded as originator of the academic movement known as Popular Culture.

Marshall W. Fishwick, Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and Director of both the American Studies and Popular Culture programs at Virginia Tech. Born in Roanoke, Virginia, and a graduate of Jefferson High School, Fishwick held degrees from the University of Virginia, the University of Wisconsin, and Yale University, and he later received honorary degrees from Bombay University, and Dhaka University. During his career, he received eight Fulbright Awards and numerous additional grants which enabled him to introduce the popular culture discipline at home and abroad in Denmark, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, Bangladesh, India, and Korea.

Professor Fishwick began his teaching career at Washington and Lee University in 1949. Professor Fishwick, professor emeritus in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech retired in 2003.

Professor Fishwick co-founded the Popular Culture Association in the late 1960s. In 1997 he was presented the Life Achievement Award in Popular Culture by the Popular Culture Association. In 1998 Professor Fishwick was honored with a lifetime achievement award by the American Culture Association.

As a Fulbright Distinguished Professor, he has worked with scholars and students in many countries and helped establish the American Studies Research Center in Hyderabad, India, the largest Asian collection of American books. Fishwick founded the journal International Popular Culture, and was co-founder of the Popular Culture Association. He served as the association's president and was advisory editor of both the Journal of Popular Culture and the Journal of American Culture. Fishwick served as Advisory Editor to the Journal of American Culture and was a Senior Editor at Haworth Press.

Best-selling author Tom Wolfe, a student of Fishwick's at Washington and Lee, called Fishwick the best professor and "most magnetic teacher" he ever had. He said he was inspired to pursue a graduate degree in American studies at Yale University because Fishwick had. More in the tradition of anthropologists than literary scholars, Fishwick taught his classes to look at the whole of a culture, even those elements considered profane.

Throughout his career he contributed articles on American studies and popular culture to papers and journals all over the world; he also published numerous articles and commentaries in American magazines and newspapers. He went on to write more than twenty books and edited an additional dozen in the fields of history, literature, education, theology, and communication. Of course, Professor Fishwick also authored many books including American Heroes: Myth and Reality, American Studies in Transition, Icons in Popular Culture, An American Mosaic: Rethinking American Culture History, Popular Culture: Cavespace to Cyberspace, and Go and Catch a Falling Star.

Fishwick’s literary career began while he was at sea with the Atlantic Fleet during World War II. His collected poems, The Face of Jang, were published in 1945. After the war, he earned a doctorate in American Studies at Yale University. His dissertation was published as A New Look at the Old Dominion. A life-long interest in heroes resulted in such titles as Virginians on Olympus, The Hero: Myth and Reality, The Hero: American Style, Heroes of Popular Culture, and The Hero in Transition. Other titles included Lee after the War, General Lee’s Photographer, Springlore in Virginia, and Faust Revisited.

His books on popular culture included Seven Pillars of Popular Culture, Common Culture and the Great Tradition, Great Awakenings: Popular Religion in America, and most recently, two textbooks, Go and Catch a Falling Star and An American Mosaic. An inveterate traveler, Fishwick reminisced about his journeys in Around the World in Forty Years. His most recent book, Cicero and Popular Culture, is in press and was published posthumously.

He died Monday, May 22, 2006. He was 82.

Marshall William Fishwick was born in Roanoke on July 5, 1923, to English parents. He grew up singing in church with his brother John, who eventually became president of the Norfolk and Western Railway. He financed his studies at the University of Virginia (BA, 1943) by singing professionally. While serving with the U.S. Navy's Atlantic Fleet during World War II (1939–1945), he wrote poetry, and in 1945 a collected volume of his poems, The Face of Jang, was published.

Fishwick returned to school after the war—University of Wisconsin (MA, 1946) and Yale University (PhD, 1949)—and published his dissertation as Virginia: A New Look at the Old Dominion (1959). Other early publications on Virginia history included Virginians on Olympus (1951), General Lee's Photographer: The Life and Work of Michael Miley (1954), Gentlemen of Virginia (1961), and Lee after the War (1963). He also wrote many books on popular culture: The Hero: American Style (1969), Common Culture and the Great Tradition: The Case for Renewal (1982), Seven Pillars of Popular Culture (1985), and Great Awakenings: Popular Religion in America (1995).

Fishwick taught at Washington and Lee University (1949–1962) before directing the Wemyss Foundation (1962–1964) and Lincoln University's Art and American Studies departments (1964–1970), and then teaching at Temple University (1970–1976). Settling at Virginia Tech until his 2003 retirement, he founded the American Studies and Popular Culture programs. Among his well-known students were journalist Roger Mudd and novelist Tom Wolfe, who wrote forewords for some of Fishwick's books.

Fishwick's professional recognitions include honorary degrees from the University of Bombay (now the University of Mumbai), the University of Dhaka, and Kraków University. With eight Fulbright Awards and several other grants, he taught in Bangladesh, Denmark, Germany, India, Italy, South Korea, Poland, and Russia. He described some of his travels in Around the World in Forty Years (1984).

The Popular Culture Association, of which he had once served as president, named a travel grant program for Fishwick, and in 1997 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Popular Culture from the American Culture Association. He was an advisory editor for the Journal of Popular Culture and the Journal of American Culture and also edited works on communication, education, history, literature, and theology. In his religious life, he served as a member of the Guild of Scholars of the Episcopal Church and historiographer of the Diocese of Southwest Virginia.

Fishwick had three daughters and a son with his first wife, two stepdaughters, and thirteen grandchildren. His third wife was historian Ann La Berge, a Virginia Tech colleague he married in 1995. He died at their Blacksburg home of complications from a blood disease on May 22, 2006. Fishwick's last book, Cicero, Classicism, and Popular Culture (2007), was published posthumously and includes several recollections about Fishwick from people who knew him personally and professionally.

Major Works

Time Line July 5, 1923 - Marshall Fishwick is born in Roanoke. 1943 - Marshall Fishwick receives his BA from the University of Virginia. 1946 - Marshall Fishwick receives his MA from the University of Wisconsin. 1949 - Marshall Fishwick receives his PhD from Yale University and his dissertation Virginia: A New Look at the Old Dominion is published in 1959. 1949–1962 - Marshall Fishwick teaches at Washington and Lee University in Lexington. 1964–1970 - Marshall Fishwick chairs Lincoln University's Art and American Studies departments. 1970–1976 - Marshall Fishwick teaches at Temple University. 1970 - Marshall Fishwick cofounds the Popular Culture Association with Ray B. Browne and Russel B. Nye. 1976–2003 - Marshall Fishwick teaches at Virginia Tech where he founds the American Studies and Popular Culture programs. 2003 - Marshall Fishwick retires from Virginia Tech. May 22, 2006 - Marshall Fishwick dies at his home in Blacksburg. Further Reading Browne, Ray B. "In Memoriam: Marshall Fishwick." Perspectives Online 45.1 (January 2007). Elliott, Jean. "Marshall Fishwick, retired professor and founder of popular culture studies, dies at 82." Virginia Tech News 24 May 2006. Esposito, Greg. "Fishwick disciplined popular culture: Author Tom Wolfe called Marshall Fishwick the 'most magnetic teacher' he ever had." The Roanoke Times 24 May 2006.

Bibliography

• The Face of Jang (1945)
• Isle of Shoals (1946)
• Virginians on Olympus (1950)
• General Lee's Photographer (1954)
• The Virginia Tradition (1955)
• Virginia: A New Look at the Old Dominion (1959) ISBN 978-0060112806
• Gentlemen of Virginia (1961)
• The South in the Sixties (1962)
• Lee after the War (1962) ASIN: B001O27ZE2
• Faust Revisited: Some Thoughts on Satan (1963)
• Great Silver Crowns (1963)
• Jamestown: First English Colony (1965)
• For Thy Great Glory(coauthored with Richard T. Feller, 1965)
• Clara Barton (1966)
• Jane Addams(1968)
• The Hero: American Style (1969)
• Parameters of Popular Culture (1974)
• American Heroes (1975)
• Springlore in Virginia (1980)
• Common Culture and the Great Tradition (1982)
• Tarnished Gold: Bengal at Bay (1983)
• Around the World in Forty Years (1984)
• Seven Pillars of Popular Culture (1985)
• The Medium and the Messiah: Cycles and Salvation (1986)
• Speaking of Virginia (1989)
• Great Awakenings: Popular Religion and Popular Culture (1995)
• Popular Culture: Cavespace to Cyberspace (1999)
• Cicero, Classicism, and Popular Culture (2007) ISBN 978-0789025920

Persondata
Name	Fishwick, Marshall
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	July 5, 1923
Place of birth	Roanoke, Virginia
Date of death	May 22, 2006
Place of death	Blacksburg, Virginia