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Credit: Photo by Roy Groething
Jack Lynch, associate professor of
English on the Newark campus, was
recently named the school's first
Hosford Scholar. The program recognizes
commitment to academic excellence.
Scholars serve for one year, receive a
research stipend and are invited to
present a major address to the campus
community.
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Credit: Steve Goodman
The Hosford Scholar Program was
established to honor David Hosford, who
most recently served as chair of the
school's history department. He is now
director of the Rutgers Study Abroad
Program in Great Britain and Ireland.
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As an undergraduate student, Jack Lynch, associate professor of English on the Newark campus, wasn’t sure where he wanted to focus his graduate studies. However, he was certain about one thing: There was absolutely no way he would pursue 18th-century English literature.
He went out of his way to make sure he wouldn’t have to take any classes. “I thought it was the dullest, stuffiest period,” Lynch explains. He was turned off by its order, regularity and decorum. “None of this appealed to me at the age of 19.”
But when he asked Paul Fussell, a mentor (and former Rutgers and University of Pennsylvania professor), why he chose to specialize in the period, Fussell replied, ‘”Nobody likes it, so it must have something going for it.” With Fussell’s help, Lynch began to realize that all of that order thinly veiled a deeply tumultuous and troubled age.
“The literary order,” Lynch said, “served as a way of covering the terror that lay beneath the times.”
With that realization, what started out as an aversion soon became a lifelong passion. Now, Lynch will continue pursuing this passion as the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ first Hosford scholar. The program was established earlier this year in recognition of former Rutgers-Newark Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS-N) Dean David Hosford’s commitment to academic excellence.
Hosford scholars are chosen annually from members of the FAS faculty who demonstrate the Hosford legacy: excellence in scholarship, teaching and service. Hosford is currently directing Rutgers Study Abroad Program in Great Britain and Ireland and most recently served as chair of the school’s history department.
Lynch, who continues to focus his research in 18th-century English literature, earned his bachelor’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. He was appointed assistant professor in 1998 and associate professor this year.
Hosford scholars serve for one year, receive a research stipend and are provided the opportunity to devote a significant portion of their efforts to scholarship. In the spring semester of the academic year for which they are chosen, the scholars are invited to present a major address relating their scholarship to the campus wide community.
“The program is intended to provide a special encouragement to younger members of the faculty who are doing exceptional research,” Hosford explains. “It provides the necessary resources that a scholar needs to focus more on a specific research interest or trajectory. It’s an honor to be associated with an effort to enhance the ability of our faculty to pursue more advanced scholarly research.”
Lynch will use the scholarship period to complete his forthcoming book, “Deception and Detection in 18th Century Britain.” The work recounts, as he puts it, “famous cases of forgery, fakery, and fraud.”
“It focuses mostly on literary cases, but any big public hoax of the day is grist for the mill,” Lynch notes. Among the cases featured in the book are James Macpherson’s “discovery” of ancient epic poems by the third-century Scottish poet Ossian and the story of 17-year-old William Henry Ireland, who claimed to have unearthed lost works of William Shakespeare, which, in reality, were his own plays.
In addition to his teaching duties and research, Lynch recently published Samuel Johnson's Dictionary: Selections from the 1755 Work That Defined the English Language, and Samuel Johnson’s Insults (both Levenger Press).
Lynch has come a long way from college student who couldn’t bear the thought of registering for a single 18th-century English lit course. He says that he enjoys passing on what he has discovered to his students.
“In my teaching I try to challenge the stereotype of that time,” Lynch says. “It is known as the age of enlightenment and reason, but it was also an age of violent civil and religious wars. Underneath the apparent boredom of the age was this abject horror that more wars would occur. I try to let my students know about the version I have discovered – and, that once you see beneath the surface, there is an awful lot there.”
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