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BLUFFTON UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR RECEIVES AWARD FROM ELIZABETHTOWN COLLEGE

Jeff Gundy, Ph.D. and professor of English at Bluffton University, has received the 2006 Dale W. Brown Book Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies from Elizabethtown College (Elizabethtown, Pa.) for his book, Walker in the Fog.

The Dale W. Brown Book Award is designed to inspire research in Anabaptist and Pietist scholarship. Winning works display creativity and originality, quality of research, significance of topic and exhibit enduring contributions to Anabaptist and Pietist studies.

Walker in the Fog was published in 2005 and provides observations on Mennonite writing and culture by examining important Mennonite writers and their works. "This book is an outgrowth of the Mennonite writing network which has expanded in the last 20 years," Gundy said. "The final product was different from what I’d first imagined because I added literary criticism to the range of information I had gathered." His interpretations are vivid and fresh, and navigate through the works of writers who have shaped Mennonite literature into what it is today. "It is a fine piece of writing whether you read it for an introduction to Mennonite writing or as an introduction to Mennonite writer Jeff Gundy," said Dr. J. Denny Weaver, professor of religion at Bluffton University and author of the preface to Walker in the Fog.

In April 2005, Walker in the Fog was chosen as the fifth volume in the C. Henry Smith Series. The series is edited by Weaver and is co-sponsored by Bluffton University and the Mennonite Historical Society. Aimed at cultivating communication among Mennonites on matters of postmodernism and theology, the series is a collection of scholarly pieces from a wide variety of disciplines relevant to the peace church tradition. The selected works demonstrate how the peace church perspective can speak anywhere. Other volumes in the series
include Anabaptists and Postmodernity by Dr. Susan Biesecker-Mast and Dr. Gerald Biesecker-Mast; Anabaptist Theology in Face of Postmodernity: A Proposal for the Third Millenium by Dr. J. Denny Weaver; Fractured Dance: Gadamer and a Mennonite Conflict Over Homosexuality by Michael A. King; Fixing Tradition: Joseph W. Yoder, Amish American by Julia Kasdorf; and Separation and the Sword in Anabaptist Persuasion: Radical Confessional Rhetoric from Schleitheim to Dordrecht by Dr. Gerald Biesecker-Mast.

"It is gratifying to get this kind of recognition," Gundy said. "Some of the best things I’ve ever written and that are closest to my life as a Mennonite writer are within Walker in the Fog." Other works by Gundy include Deerflies; A Community of Memory: My Days with George and Clara; and Scattering Point: The World in a Mennonite Eye.

Andrea Janzen, public relations office, 4/27/06