Catherine Belsey

Abstract

It is with great sorrow that the general editors note the recent death of Catherine Belsey on 14 February 2021. Kate Belsey, as she was called, was one of the founding editors of the European Journal of English Studies. As she wrote in the inaugural issue, with her co-editors Herbert Grabes and Jean-Jacques Lecercle, “The cause is Europe. . . . The cause is also English Studies in the broadest sense of the term. . . . Moreover, the cause is debate” (EJES 1, no. 1, 1997). The cause was and remains, Europe. For this once young scholar, Catherine Belsey was a giant in the field, displaying a quiet feminist grace, wit, and fortitude, when given pushback, while holding a plenary at the large ESSE gathering in Turin in 2010, where she spoke about “Gendered Revenants.” Rather less from afar, I had the opportunity to admire her several times in smaller academic contexts in Germany. At one instance, I remember her thoughtfully playing with Shakespeare’s “time out of joint” to consider its spatial, embodied and temporal elements. As I was finding my own way in literary studies, having moved in sideways from philosophy, I looked to her “Towards cultural history – In theory and practice” (1989) for guidance. Her notes about the previous exclusions of English Departments, most particularly gender-related ones, laid one of the foundations for the cultural-political analysis I pass on to students today. She describes the task of cultural history to “lay bare the contradictions and conflicts, the instabilities and indeterminacies, which inevitably reside in any bid for truth. . . . I’m not sure how easy it is. But if we can interpret Shakespeare, we can surely learn to interpret fashion, and music – and privies.” This inspired me and still does, as Kate’s life continues to inspire this journal.