Darryl Gless, the Roy C. Moose Distinguished Professor of Renaissance Studies in the department of English and comparative literature at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, died June 10, 2014. He was 68, and had suffered from myelofibrosis.
Gless graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1968, and was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford. In 1975, he earned a Ph.D. in English from Princeton. After teaching at the University of Virginia, he joined the faculty at UNC as an associate professor in 1980.
He received the University Tanner Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1983 and the Board of Governors’ Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2013. Achieving a full professorship at UNC in 1993, he became the Moose Professor in 2009.
Gless’ published works included books on Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser. Among his important administrative positions at UNC, he was chair of the English department and senior associate dean of arts and humanities. As a defender of the humanities, in 1994 President Clinton appointed him to the National Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities, which he chaired from 1999 to 2002.
At the time of his death, Gless was survived by his wife, Friederike Seeger, who was pregnant with their daughter; and his mother, Vivian.
Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.