In memoriam Hans Sauer

I am deeply saddened by the unexpected passing of my Doktorvater, Professor Hans Sauer. The German “Doktorvater” is usually translated as “PhD supervisor/advisor” but the literal translation “doctoral father” is more accurate in suggesting the important role Hans Sauer played in my academic socialization.

Hans Sauer was a specialist in the English language and literature of the Middle Ages. An overview of his career can be found in the obituary by another of his students, Professor Gaby Waxenberger, which I’m reproducing here in full:

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Vale Professor Hans Sauer

It is with great sadness that we announce the sudden and unexpected passing of Prof. Dr. Hans Sauer on 31 May 2022. Hans will be remembered as an outstanding teacher, researcher, and person.

Born on 9 September 1946 in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Hans Sauer attended school there. He studied English, Latin, and German at LMU Munich.

Hans Sauer taught and lectured at many universities in Germany (Würzburg, Dresden, Eichstätt and Munich), in Europe (e.g., Innsbruck, Austria; Brno, Czech Republic; Warsaw, Poznan, Lodz, and Katowice, Poland; Palermo, Italy) and worldwide (e.g., Columbus, Ohio, US; Tokyo, Japan; Beijing and Chongqing, China; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia).

He was a caring university teacher and supported both his students and his staff beyond the call of duty. Hans Sauer supervised more than 30 dissertations and habilitations, and innumerable M.A. theses.

Hans was a never-ending fountain of knowledge and wisdom. His publications bear witness to his expertise in a wide variety of topics. He published more than 20 books, editions and studies on medieval English texts as well as more than 200 articles. These covered a wide range of subject areas: word-formation; plant names; glossaries and lexicography; Beowulf; especially Beowulf translations and adaptations; the history of linguistics and of English studies; the varieties of English; pidgins and creoles; advertising language; interjections, and binomials.

He was co-editor of Anglia, LexMA (Lexikon des Mittelalters), MET (Middle English Texts), MUSE (formerly TUEPh = Texte und Untersuchungen zur englischen Philologie), and of the book series English and Beyond.

Hans Sauer was a unique person of unparalleled kindness, generosity, and wisdom, of unprejudiced curiosity and open-mindedness, and with a heart of gold, rooted in his deep faith in God. He will be remembered with great admiration and respect, and above all, with much affection. We have lost a great scholar and a wonderful person.

(Gaby Waxenberger)

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I also remember Professor Sauer as a teacher and scholar of extraordinary kindness and generosity.

I first met Professor Sauer as a graduate student at the University of Würzburg, where I took one of his classes about Chaucer. The seminar involved a lot of close reading of the Canterbury Tales – we learned the opening lines of the Prologue by heart – and a fascinating mélange of linguistics, literature, and history.

When I recite the opening lines to myself, as I often do, I always think of Professor Sauer:

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in switch licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So Priketh hem Nature in hir corages),
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

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When Professor Sauer accepted a new position as chair professor of English Linguistics at Dresden University of Technology just around the time of my graduation, he offered me a position as his assistant. For the next three years, I worked alongside him in an exciting teaching and research position in a vibrant university, city, and region undergoing deep transformations just after the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification. A reflection on my unique teaching experience during that time can be found in this post about multilingual Europe.

I experienced an academic apprenticeship that continues to form the basis for my own approach to supervision. There are at least four lessons I learned.

First, Professor Sauer believed in academic freedom to a fault. He granted me complete freedom in the choice of my research topic and accepted my interest in American Automobile Names – which another of my academic teachers, Professor Erwin Koller, had ignited – without even trying to steer me to a topic more closely aligned with his own research interests.

Unlike many PhD supervisors, Professor Sauer was never overbearing. He was there with advice and guidance when I needed it but he never attempted to steer me in a particular direction or lay claim to my work. For that early experience of academic independence I am deeply grateful.

Second, Professor Sauer created networks and opportunities for interaction and exchange. He enjoyed “geselliges Beisammensein” – spending time in sociable interaction – and arranged for a steady stream of seminars, academic visits, and joint meals. These occasions allowed myself and other junior scholars associated with the newly founded English Department to engage in conversations as a form of joint inquiry.

To this day, I value this socialization and the Language on the Move network has been my attempt to recreate something similar for my own students and mentees in a different context.

Third, Professor Sauer was a committed European and internationalist. At a time when academics in English Departments in Germany looked almost exclusively to the UK and USA for international exchange, Professor Sauer fostered connections with colleagues in Eastern Europe. During my candidature, he encouraged me to take up a visiting fellowship at the University of Łódź, Poland, and secured funding for me to attend conferences at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, and at the University of Timișoara, Romania.

After graduation, Professor Sauer helped me obtain a position as visiting assistant professor at Ithaca College in New York. For me, these efforts created formative experiences and led to lifelong networks and friendships. I know that the same is true for many other students and colleagues in Professor Sauer’s orbit.

Fourth, Professor Sauer modelled the ideal of the well-rounded humanist. A passionate opera lover, he was always organizing parties to see one performance or other. He taught us to make the most of life in a city with a famous opera house, the Semperoper, and a unique operetta venue, the Staatsoperette. Tickets were still subsidized and with a bit of planning it was always possible to secure affordable seats. Before I started my PhD, I had never been to see an opera and one of the side benefits of my doctoral years was that I learned to appreciate the operatic tradition.

The three years I worked for Professor Sauer launched my academic career and I remember them with much fondness. I will be forever grateful to Professor Sauer for his teaching, his guidance, his mentorship, and the doors he opened for me.

While we mourn his passing, his legacy lives on in his students. May he rest in peace and may his family find comfort in the affection and admiration he inspired!

Related content

• In memoriam Michael Clyne
• In memoriam Erwin Koller
• In memoriam Hans Reich

Interview with Professor Sauer, 9th International Conference on Middle English, Wrocław, 2015