Robert Petersson, professor emeritus and former chair of the English department at Smith College, died peacefully April 8, 2011, at the age of 92.
Petersson graduated from UC, Berkeley, in 1942 with a bachelor’s degree in classics. He then came to Princeton and received a Ph.D. in English in 1946. (A lung condition made him ineligible for military service.)
He began his full-time teaching career in 1945 at the University of Chicago, and then taught at Yale from 1947 to 1952 before going to Smith as an assistant professor of English. He was promoted to associate professor in 1957 and to full professor in 1964. He became emeritus in 1985. At that time, Richard B. Young, a Smith College professor of English, wrote that Petersson’s “colleagues will miss the friendliness and decency with which he insisted we conduct our affairs.”
One of Petersson’s four books, Shakespeare’s King Richard II (in the Yale Shakespeare series, 1957 and 1965), was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. Among his awards were grants from the American Philosophical Society and the American Council of Learned Societies.
Petersson is survived by Suzanne, his wife of 64 years; four children; and eight grandchildren.
Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.