Peter Elbow, 89, professor emeritus in the Department of English in the College of Humanities and Fine Arts, died earlier this month in Seattle. 

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Elbow was a faculty member of the English department from 1987 to 2000 and served as director of the Writing Program from 1996-2000. After his retirement, he remained active in the department and the wider community for more than a decade.

In 1999, Elbow donated $100,000 to the University of Massachusetts Foundation to establish a yearly symposium “to foster interchange” among scholars and teachers in the field of composition and rhetoric. As a result, the outline for the Peter Elbow Symposium for the Study and Teaching of Writing was created. 

Nearly every summer for the next 15 years, Elbow hosted the weeklong gathering in Amherst dedicated to the study and teaching of writing, inviting 8-10 scholars and teachers from around the country to spend time together sharing their work and discuss relevant issues, as well as enjoy free time for writing and relaxation. After Elbow’s move to the West Coast, the symposium paused, and, in 2018, was passed from Elbow to composition and rhetoric faculty, where they re-energized and re-dedicated the symposium in Elbow’s name.

Elbow was well cited for his works and well published beyond his notable contributions at UMass Amherst. He published more than 10 books and more than 100 essays on writing and the teaching of writing.

A tribute to Elbow from the English department, originally published on the department’s website, can be found below.

We are saddened to report the passing of Professor Emeritus Peter Elbow, who died after a short illness in Seattle, Washington, on February 6. He was 89 years old. Peter was on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts Amherst English Department from 1987 to 2000, when he officially retired, though he remained active in the department and wider community for more than a decade after that. In 2014, he and his wife Cami moved to Seattle to be near their children and grandchildren.

Peter received the AB from Williams College in 1957 and the PhD from Brandeis University in 1969, spending time as a student at Oxford and Harvard Universities as well. He held faculty positions at MIT, Franconia College, Evergreen State College, and SUNY Stony Brook, where he also directed the Writing Program. It was from Stony Brook that Peter came to UMass. He directed our Writing Program from 1996 to 2000.

Peter’s dissertation was later published as Oppositions in Chaucer (1975); but he was best known as one of the central figures in modern American composition studies – indeed, as one of the founders of the discipline. His 1973 book Writing Without Teachers (Oxford) was a phenomenon; Google Scholar lists it today with more than 5,000 citations. It and his later book Writing With Power (Oxford, 1981) have together sold more than 160,000 copies. Peter did not invent freewriting, but it has long been associated with him, and he did perhaps more than any other scholar or teacher to democratize writing in the United States.

Peter was also the author of Embracing Contraries (Oxford, 1986), What is English? (MLA, 1990), and (with Pat Belanoff) a textbook, A Community of Writers (Random House, 1989). His most recent book was Vernacular Eloquence: What Speech Can Bring to Writing (Oxford, 2012). In all, Peter published more than 10 books and more than 100 essays on writing and the teaching of writing.

Peter was the recipient of numerous awards: in 1985, the Richard Braddock Award for the best essay in College Composition and Communication; in 1993, the James A. Berlin award for the best essay in Rhetoric Review; in 2001, the James R. Squire Award from the National Council of Teachers of English “for his transforming influence and lasting intellectual contribution to the English Profession”; and in 2007, the Exemplar Award from the Conference on College Composition and Communication for “representing the highest ideals of scholarship, teaching, and service to the entire profession.”

In 1999, Peter donated $100,000 to the University of Massachusetts Foundation to promote intellectual exchange among scholars of writing and the teaching of writing. Matched by funds from the Commonwealth, the gift now supports the annual Peter Elbow Symposium for the Study and Teaching of Writing, a centerpiece of the Composition and Rhetoric graduate program in English at UMass Amherst.

Professor emerita Anne Herrington, who was on the faculty with Peter for nearly 20 years, writes, “Peter cared about students and teaching them in ways that fostered creativity while being able to write successfully in a range of rhetorical situations. He was a supportive colleague and friend who lived a full life of giving through his written work and his personal relations with people.”

In 1985, Oxford University Press published a collection of Peter’s essays called Everyone Can Write. The title encapsulates Peter Elbow’s life and work – his scholarship, his teaching, his very character – better than anything we could say. Everyone can write. Peter taught us that. He will be sorely missed.

An obituary from the family can be found here.