Helen Tartar<\/b><\/p>\n
Editorial Director, Fordham University Press, 1951-2014<\/b><\/p>\n
The critical community staggers at the news that Helen Tartar, Executive Editor at Fordham University Press, perished on March 3 this week in an automobile accident in Colorado. Although not alone in her apprehension that contemporary critical theory was the dominant methodological motor of any viable literary and cultural critique at the close of the twentieth century and beyond–fellow-editors in this cadre included Lindsay Waters, especially during his years at the University of Minnesota Press, and William Germano and Willis Regier, when they were, respectively at Routledge and the University of Nebraska Press\u2014from the inception of her editing career at Stanford University Press, Helen Tartar established herself as the standard-bearer in publishing critical theory as an interactive literature <\/i>and in the conduct of editing as a theoretical practice in itself. She was at the same time, as described by her longtime associate at Fordham, Thomas Lay, \u201cutterly undogmatic\u201d: \u201cEvery once and a while, I\u2019d be surprised at some seemingly very un-Helen book she was championing, but then I\u2019d listen to her about it, and the point would be that it was really, really good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raised in Washington State and with a B.A. from Swarthmore College (1972) and two M.A. s from Yale University (1975, English; 1978, East Asian Studies), Helen Tartar understood literary production and critical theory first and foremost as an ecological process. Her father had been a noted geneticist at the University of Oregon, and she took pride in continuing this purview in her work. It was for this reason that she herself received uplift from promoting Stanford University Press\u2019s well-established series in Far Eastern literature and thought at the same time that she became an indefatigable advocate for the likes of Jacques Derrida, J. Hillis Miller, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Cixous, Jean-Luc Nancy, Friedrich Kittler, Bernard Stiegler, Catherine Malabou, Werner Hamacher, Hent de Vries and for those who have continued in their footsteps. Both through a host of individual studies in theory, and through such innovations as the Meridian Series, Tartar soon established Stanford University Press as the preeminent English-language publisher in the field of critical theory. A formidable critical theorist in her own right, Tartar was never more at home than in the supercharged atmosphere of top-notch academic conferences in the areas of philosophy and literature, where she was a \u201cregular\u201d in her unstinting quest for exciting new approaches.<\/p>\n
For all of her devoted and self-sacrificing service to the eminences<\/i> of contemporary philosophy, critical theory, and environmental studies, from the very outset of her career, Helen was never happier than in working with first-time authors, whose lifetime orientation to the challenges and rigors of academic publishing she took on with indefatigable zeal. When her editorial watch shifted to Fordham University Press in 2003, after a precipitous and controversial departure the previous year from Stanford, she played a leading role in securing funding from the Mellon Foundation to support first books by fledgling academic authors. This Modern Language Initiative that she helped found extends beyond Fordham to an entire consortium of like-minded university publishers.<\/p>\n
In short shrift after arriving at Fordham University Press, Tartar established it as a notable venue in the publication of cutting-edge theoretical writing. She did this while discovering and promoting talent in a full range of other compelling areas of cultural scrutiny. As she had done at Stanford, she built upon existing local strength at her new publisher. With particular zeal, she published innovative new work on the cusps between literature and theology and between critical theory and the environment.<\/p>\n
Yet at both of the presses where she left an indelible mark, editorial practice was the foundation and the fulcrum of her wider intervention within the world of publishing. She continued hands-on editing, sometimes in collaboration with Bud Bynack, her devoted lifetime partner, until the very end. Those of us who were blessed by this unrestricted service and dedication knew a great deal more about books in general, English prose, graphic design, and reference apparatuses when our books were in press than when we had first set out on this way<\/i>. Editing, under the aura of Helen Tartar, was the completion of writerly and communicative potential and was anything but a post-facto domestication of unruly prose. Tartar\u2019s involvement in the graphic and logistical underpinnings of her author\u2019s books was unparalleled and is not likely, under contemporary constraints, to be repeated.<\/p>\n
More than any other editor or publisher, Helen Tartar retrofitted the activity of producing books to the breathless apprehensions and discoveries of contemporary critical theory. A stunning mindfulness and follow-through prevailed between the way she approached a sentence or a whole chapter, her taste in contemporary critical writing and Cultural Studies, and the way in which she nurtured ALL her authors, but particularly the ones learning to fend for themselves. Her devotion to the history and the culture of the book matched her commitments to mindfulness, as manifested East and West, as to intelligence, judgment, and taste. The book-launches that she threw for her authors, often at Book Culture in New York City, and her standing f\u00eate at the Modern Language Association convention, were legendary.<\/p>\n
More often than not, Tartar would be peacefully knitting as she took in the latest speculations on the theoretical and cultural horizons. The strands of her intellectual drive, her politico-cultural commitment, her critical and aesthetic discernment, and her hands-on approach to ideas as to book-production form an unusually coherent and rich tapestry. There was simply no end in sight to her ongoing plans and projects. Helen Tartar\u2019s weaving has suffered a precipitous and traumatic disruption. As members of the critical community, it behooves us strongly to study the unique components and texture of this weave and to sustain its indispensable lines of thought and commitment in our ongoing cultural inscription.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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