In the Spotlight: Dr. Anne Zahlan
Interview by Corey Taylor

1. How long have you been at EIU?  

Twenty-four years!  

2. Where did you teach before EIU?  

I taught at the American University of Beirut and the Lebanese National University, and as a Graduate Assistant and then Lecturer at the University of North Carolina.  

3. What made you decide to retire?  

David and I established our "time-line" a few years ago. We just decided that this would be the right time to leave teaching and Eastern and to start a new stage of our lives. We wanted to retire while we are still active and energetic—and before people started asking about how much longer we'd be around.  

4. What are the three things you'll do first after you leave?  

After the semester ends, I will still be directing one last M.A. thesis, and I will attend two conferences, and write two papers, so this summer won't be different from those in the past. I will also be working on the next issue of the Thomas Wolfe Review, so I won't notice a change until next fall.

Cleaning out my office this summer will, of course, be a trauma! 

5. Will you stay in Charleston, or will you move out of the area entirely?  

David and I are planning to move to North Carolina, where we have many relatives and friends.  

6. Do you plan to travel? If so, what's on your itinerary?  

This summer, we are going to France for an International Lawrence Durrell Society conference, and in 2009 we will go back to Paris for a Thomas Wolfe Society conference.

David and I have been fortunate in having been able to travel throughout our lives, and we plan on continuing to do so. Our future travel abroad will probably be going back to places we know and love rather than exploring new countries: we hope to continue to travel to Germany, Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, and Greece.

7. What are you most looking forward to about being retired?  

I am looking forward to spending more time with family and especially to being a grandmother. I hope that I will never again respond to an invitation with the words, "I can't because I have too much work to do."  

8. Are you looking forward to catching up on some pleasure reading? What's on your list?  

One of the complaints of my job is that it's hard to find time for reading that isn't clearly connected to teaching and research projects. I haven't gotten down to compiling a list as yet, but I look forward to reading Proust again, both in the "new" translation and in French.  

9. What will you miss most about teaching?  

I will miss the interaction with students, the sense of shared endeavor. The demands of teaching include the positive pressure to read and reread challenging texts and to figure out ways to help others benefit from them. I enjoy helping other people learn, and I value also what I learn from students.  

10. What is your favorite memory from teaching?  

Most of my memories of teaching are good, especially those of my graduate seminars in Contemporary British Literature and Literature of Empire. These classes have always been marked by a sense of discovery, and we've celebrated the conclusion of each course with a dinner at my house.

A very sweet memory from my early years at Eastern comes from an undergraduate class, a 2000-level course in fiction. About two-thirds of the way through the semester, the chair and the chair of the Personnel Committee were due to observe the class, and I clearly communicated to the students a certain nervousness about the impending ordeal. So on the dread day, no sooner had Professors Quivey and Whitlow arrived than a basket of flowers was delivered from a local florist—a gift from the class! As you can imagine, I was a bit thrown off for a moment, but how sweet of those students to support me in that wonderful way. (Fortunately, the observers thought so too!) 

11. Is retirement for you a relaxing finish or a new beginning? How so?  

So far, I haven't noticed the relaxation, but let's hope it will come. Definitely, I regard retirement as a new beginning, especially because we're moving to a new city and into a new house. We are embarking also on the adventure of being grandparents.