St. Lawrence University Professor of Canadian Studies Robert W. Thacker has been appointed a Molson Research Fellow, which will allow him to take a sabbatical leave next year, conducting research in preparation for writing the biography of Canadian author Alice Munro.
The fellowship is funded by a gift from Eric Molson, chairman of Molson Inc., and his wife, Jane Molson, of Montreal, through the Lincolnshire Foundation.
Thacker has begun work on Alice Munro: Writing Her Lives, an extended literary biography focused on Munro, her fiction, and her career. His research involves visits to archives and travel to interview people connected to Munro's career.
"We are deeply grateful to the Molsons and the Lincolnshire Foundation for this spectacular gift," said University President Daniel F. Sullivan. "Their support of our Canadian studies program makes possible a level of attentiveness to Canada here at St. Lawrence that is distinctive among American liberal arts colleges and we value it greatly. Specifically, this gift will allow Professor Thacker the time necessary to explore this extraordinary opportunity, and for that, we are especially thankful."
Eric and Jane Molson are the parents of St. Lawrence alumnus Geoffrey Molson '92, who married Kate Finn '92; Geoffrey is the vice-president, quality and distributor development, for Molson USA in Golden, Colorado. Eric Molson has served as chairman of Molson Inc. since 1988. He is also chancellor of Concordia University and a director of the Montreal General Hospital Foundation and Research Institute, the Canadian Irish Studies Foundation and Vie des Arts.
Eric and Jane Molson have also supported St. Lawrence University's Canadian Studies Endowment Fund through the Lincolnshire Foundation, establishing in 1993 the Molson Family Endowment for Canadian Studies.
"We are delighted with this opportunity to support Dr. Thacker," Eric Molson said of the gift. "We have noted over the years his very important work in Canadian studies which extends to interested scholars, not only in the United States, but worldwide. We wish him well in this important endeavor."
Widely regarded as among the best contemporary writers of short stories in English, Munro was born in Wingham, Ontario in 1931. After graduating from high school, she attended the University of Western Ontario from 1949-1951. Majoring in English, it was at Western where Munro began to publish in the undergraduate literary magazine. In 1951, she married James Munro and moved with him to Vancouver, where they began raising a family. In 1963, they moved to Victoria and started Munro's Books, which remains the leading bookstore on Vancouver Island. During this time Munro's stories were read on C.B.C. radio and published in a variety of Canadian periodicals. When her marriage ended in 1972, Munro returned to southwestern Ontario. She and her second husband, whom she married in 1976, now divide their time between Clinton, Ontario and Comox, British Columbia.
Munro has published a novel, "Lives of Girls and Women" (1971), and nine collections of short stories: "Dance of the Happy Shades" (1968), "Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You"
(1976), "Who Do You Think You Are?" (1978; U.S. and U.K., "The Beggar Maid"), "The Moons of Jupiter" (1982), "The Progress of Love" (1986), "Friend of My Youth" (1990), "Open Secrets" (1994), "The Love of a Good Woman" (1998), and "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage" (2001). Her "Selected Stories" were published in 1996 and a shorter selection, "No Love Lost," has just been published by McClelland and Stewart, Toronto. Since the 1970s, Munro's stories have been frequently printed in periodicals such as "The Paris Review," "Atlantic Monthly" and, especially, "The New Yorker," which has itself published well over 40 of them.
A faculty member at St. Lawrence since 1983, Thacker is a graduate of Bowling Green State University, with a master's degree from the University of Waterloo and the Ph.D. from the University of Manitoba. He is an expert on Canadian culture, especially literature, and has written extensively on the work of Munro, Willa Cather, and the North American literary west. Thacker is the editor of "The Rest of the Story: Critical Essays on Alice Munro" (1999). He is the executive secretary and treasurer of the Western Literature Association and former editor of "The American Review of Canadian Studies." Thacker has also been awarded a grant from the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C. to support research on the Munro biography.
"This very generous gift means that I will have the time to complete this book - the project of a lifetime - properly," Thacker commented. "I offer sincere thanks to the Molsons and the Lincolnshire Foundation for their willingness to support my work."
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