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Robert C. Holub (1949-2023)
Bob Holub died at his home in Worthington, Ohio, on Sunday, August 27, 2023. He had just turned 74. With his deep voice, leaderly bearing and sharp eye for flawed logic, Bob could be an imposing presence. But there were many sides to him: efficient in the extreme as an administrator, he was also a warm, witty person and he will be remembered as a generous colleague, an adoring father and husband, and a loyal friend.
Bob was born in Belmar, New Jersey and grew up in nearby Asbury Park. At UPenn, he majored in Natural Sciences. He went on to earn two MA degrees in literary studies—one from Berlin’s Freie Universität in 1973, the other from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1975. His PhD thesis, which examines Heinrich Heine’s reception of German grecophilia, was written at UW Madison under the direction of Jost Hermand, with whom Bob remained lifelong friends. In 1979, the year he completed his dissertation, he joined the German department at UC Berkeley as an assistant professor, moving there with his first wife, Renate, and infant son Alexei.
It didn’t take Bob long to embrace a trio of Bay Area teams: the A’s, the 49ers and his beloved Golden State Warriors. He took only little longer to establish himself as a major figure in German studies. Bob published five books and three edited volumes over the first thirteen years of his career, while organizing conferences and reading groups, rarely missing lectures hosted by his department, and bringing great energy and skill to his teaching duties and service assignments—he was truly a model citizen of the research university. The topics he addressed ranged from Heine’s essays (he could recite whole passages) to the work of Jürgen Habermas, whose theory of communicative reason he admired. Read more.
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