Nancy Struever

{{Infobox academic

|name=Nancy Struever

|birth_date={{birth date and age|1928|12|02}}

|birth_place=LaSalle, Illinois, U.S.

|children=3

|alma_mater=Frances Shimer Academy
Connecticut College
University of Rochester

|workplaces=Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Johns Hopkins University

|discipline=Renaissance studies, comparative literature

|academic_advisors=Bernard Nicholas Schilling

|doctoral_advisor=Hayden White

|thesis_title=Rhetoric and Historical Consciousness in Italian Humanism; Rhetorical and Historical Modes in Coluccio Salutati, Leonardo Bruni, and Poggio Bracciolini|thesis_url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/434907528

|thesis_year=1966

|birth_name=Nancie Schermerhorn

}}

Nancie Schermerhorn Struever (born December 2, 1928) is an American historian of the Renaissance. She is a professor emerita in the department of comparative thought and literature at the Johns Hopkins Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences where she joined the faculty in 1974.{{Cite web|title=Nancy Struever|url=https://compthoughtlit.jhu.edu/directory/nancy-struever/|access-date=2022-02-20|website=Johns Hopkins University|date=21 November 2017 |language=en-US}} Struever was previously a professor at the Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

Early life and education

Nancie Schermerhorn Struever was born December 2, 1928, in LaSalle, Illinois. She is the daughter of Olive M. Schermerhorn.{{Cite news|date=1954-03-11|title=Set Schermerhorn Estate at $67,000|pages=24|work=The Times|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/95762060/set-schermerhorn-estate-at-67000/|access-date=2022-02-20}} She graduated from LaSalle-Peru High School in June 1945. From 1945 to 1946, Struever attended Frances Shimer Academy where she won the Elizabeth Percy Konrad trophy for excellence in English and the Phi Theta Kappa scholastic award.{{Cite news|date=1946-06-10|title=Announce Awards at Frances Shimer Commencement|pages=3|work=Freeport Journal-Standard|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/95773788/announce-awards-at-frances-shimer/|access-date=2022-02-20}} She majored in history during her junior a senior year at Connecticut College from 1946 to 1948.

Struever married Carl C. Struever Jr., an engineer at Eastman Kodak. She later completed a bachelor's degree in history at the University of Rochester College for Women{{Cite news|date=1954-06-14|title=Candidates for Degrees from the College for Women|pages=15|work=Democrat and Chronicle|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/95771929/candidates-for-degrees-from-the-college/|access-date=2022-02-20}} where she graduated with distinction and Phi Beta Kappa in June 1954. She completed a M.A. in English in June 1957 at the University of Rochester. Her master's thesis conducted under advisor {{Interlanguage link|Bernard Nicholas Schilling|qid=Q110971579}} was titled, A Comparison of the Historical Method and Literary Style of Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Tomas Carlyle's French Revolution.

Struever commenced her doctoral studies in May 1961 under advisor Hayden White. While completing graduate courses, she studied Greek at the Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School. During the school year 1963 to 1964, she was awarded a $3,000 fellowship by the American Association of University Women, allowing her to spend a summer Florence. While there, she researched in the Archivio di Stato di Firenze and read Florentine manuscripts at the British Museum. Stuever was an instructor in the history department at Hobart and William Smith Colleges beginning in 1964. In 1966, Struever completed a Ph.D. in medieval history. Her dissertation was titled, Rhetoric and Historical Consciousness in Italian Humanism; Rhetorical and Historical Modes in Coluccio Salutati, Leonardo Bruni, and Poggio Bracciolini.{{Cite thesis|title=Rhetoric and historical consciousness in italian humanism: rhetorical and historiacl modes in Coluccio Salutati, Leonardo Bruni and Poggio Bracciolini|date=1966|place=Ann Arbor, Michigan|language=English|first=Nancie Schermerhorn|last=Struever|degree=Ph.D.|oclc=434907528}} The dissertation became the basis of her first book published in 1970.{{Cite news|last=Converse|first=Margaret|date=1971-01-31|title=Trim, Tenacious Nancy|pages=81|work=Democrat and Chronicle|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/95699790/trim-tenacious-nancy/|access-date=2022-02-20}}

At the time she completed her doctorate, Struever had a daughter and son in college and her youngest son was a freshman in high school. In a 1971 interview, Struever shared of her experiences as a doctoral student that, "...attitudes among the faculty ranged from encouraging to horrified. My worst problem was that U of R would not give me a graduate fellowship, because history obviously could only be my avocation, not my vocation. They didn't think I could be serious, so I spent two years as a teaching assistant without pay, in order to get my teaching credits."

Career

In 1971, Struever, a professor of history at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, was awarded an American Council of Learned Societies fellowship that she would use to take a sabbatical from 1972 to 1973 in Italy to research for her second book.{{Cite news|date=1972-02-28|title=Fellowship Award|pages=19|work=Democrat and Chronicle|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/95755271/fellowship-award/|access-date=2022-02-20}}

In 1974, Struever became a professor at Johns Hopkins University.{{Cite news|date=2001-04-01|title=Struevers|pages=69|work=The Baltimore Sun|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/95765359/struevers/|access-date=2022-02-20}}

In 1990, Struever was the president of the {{Interlanguage link|International Society for the History of Rhetoric|qid=Q6053449}}.{{Cite news|date=1990-02-16|title=Plans set for memorial lecture|pages=3|work=The Daily Tar Heel|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/95634035/plans-set-for-memorial-lecture/|access-date=2022-02-20}}

In March 1998, the humanities center at Johns Hopkins sponsored a symposium in honor of her retirement.{{Cite journal|date=1998|title=Incipitque Semper|journal=MLN|language=en|volume=113|issue=5|pages=1250–1252|doi=10.1353/mln.1998.0090|issn=1080-6598}}

Personal life

In 1974, Struever moved to Tuscany-Canterbury, Baltimore. Struever's sons Bill and Fred are real estate developers in Baltimore. She owns a home in Maine.{{Cite news|date=2001-04-01|title=On the move, 'saving the city'|pages=71|work=The Baltimore Sun|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/95763102/on-the-move-saving-the-city/|access-date=2022-02-20}} Struever and her daughter, Molly, shared ownership of the Children's Bookstore in Baltimore with JoAnn Fruchtman. By 1999, Fruchtman reported that she bought the Struevers out a few years after opening.{{Cite news|date=1999-10-19|title=Bookstore for the young and young-at-heart|pages=70|work=The Baltimore Sun|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/95758516/bookstore-for-the-young-and/|access-date=2022-02-20}}

Selected works

{{Cite book|last=Struever|first=Nancy S.|title=The Language of History in the Renaissance: Rhetoric and Historical Consciousness in Florentine Humanism|date=1970|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-06180-1|language=en}}Reviews of The Language of History in the Renaissance:
{{Cite journal|last=Temelini|first=Walter|date=1972|title=Review of The Language of History in the Renaissance: Rhetoric and Historical Consciousness in Florentine Humanism|journal=Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme|volume=8|issue=3|pages=121–122|issn=0034-429X|jstor=43465965}}
{{Cite journal|last=Weinstein|first=Donald|author-link=Donald Weinstein|date=1972|title=In Whose Image and Likeness? Interpretations of Renaissance Humanism|journal=Journal of the History of Ideas|volume=33|issue=1|pages=165–176|doi=10.2307/2709064|issn=0022-5037|jstor=2709064}}
{{Cite journal|last=Hay|first=Denys|author-link=Denys Hay|date=1972|title=Review of Savonarola and Florence: Prophecy and Patriotism in the Renaissance; The Language of History in the Renaissance. Rhetoric and Historical Consciousness in Florentine Humanism|journal=The Modern Language Review|volume=67|issue=4|pages=922–923|doi=10.2307/3724534|issn=0026-7937|jstor=3724534}}
{{Cite journal|last=Gilmore|first=Myron Piper|author-link=Myron Piper Gilmore|date=1971|title=Review of Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship: Language, Law, and History in the French Renaissance; The Language of History in the Renaissance: Rhetoric and Historical Consciousness in Florentine Humanism|journal=The American Historical Review|volume=76|issue=4|pages=1152–1154|doi=10.2307/1849279|issn=0002-8762|jstor=1849279}}
{{Cite journal|last=Wilcox|first=Donald J.|author-link=Donald J. Wilcox|date=1973|title=Review of The Language of History in the Renaissance: Rhetorical and Historical Consciousness in Florentine Humanism.|journal=Renaissance Quarterly|volume=26|issue=1|pages=43–44|doi=10.2307/2859461|issn=0034-4338|jstor=2859461|s2cid=191955027 }}
{{Cite journal|last=Van Eerde|first=Katherine S.|date=1971|title=Review of The Language of History in the Renaissance: Rhetoric and Historical Consciousness in Florentine Humanism|journal=The Historian|volume=34|issue=1|pages=125–126|issn=0018-2370|jstor=24442799}}
{{Cite journal|last=Hyde|first=J. Kenneth|author-link=Kenneth Hyde|date=1973|title=Review of THE LANGUAGE OF HISTORY IN THE RENAISSANCE|journal=History|volume=58|issue=192|pages=90|issn=0018-2648|jstor=24408284}}
{{Cite journal|last=Kelley|first=Donald R.|author-link=Donald R. Kelley|date=1972|title=Review of The Language of History in the Renaissance. Rhetoric and Historical Consciousness in Florentine Humanism; The Development of Florentine Humanist Historiography in the Fifteenth Century|journal=The Catholic Historical Review|volume=58|issue=2|pages=286–288|issn=0008-8080|jstor=25019082}}
{{Cite book|last1=Vickers|first1=Brian|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5zpQAQAAIAAJ|title=Rhetoric and the Pursuit of Truth: Language Change in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries|last2=Struever|first2=Nancy S.|date=1985|publisher=William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California|language=en|author-link=Brian Vickers (literary scholar)}}Reviews of Rhetoric and Pursuit of Truth:
{{Cite journal|last=Miller|first=Brian Donald Hewens|date=1991|title=Review of Rhetoric and the Pursuit of Truth: Language Change in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries|journal=The Review of English Studies|volume=42|issue=166|pages=237–239|doi=10.1093/res/XLII.166.237|issn=0034-6551|jstor=515942}}
{{Cite journal|date=1988|title=Review of Rhetoric and the Pursuit of Truth. Language Change in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries|journal=Social Studies of Science|volume=18|issue=3|pages=565|issn=0306-3127|jstor=285242}}
{{Cite book|last=Struever|first=Nancy S.|title=Theory as Practice: Ethical Inquiry in the Renaissance|date=1992|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-77742-9|language=en}}Reviews of Theory as Practice:
{{Cite journal|last=Sloane|first=Thomas O.|author-link=Thomas O. Sloane|date=1993|title=Review of Theory as Practice: Ethical Inquiry in the Renaissance|journal=Rhetoric Society Quarterly|volume=23|issue=2|pages=59–61|doi=10.1080/02773949309390989|issn=0277-3945|jstor=3885927}}
{{Cite journal|last=Waswo|first=Richard Arthur|date=1993|title=Review of Theory as Practice: Ethical Inquiry in the Renaissance|journal=Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance|volume=55|issue=1|pages=156–159|issn=0006-1999|jstor=20679408}}
{{Cite journal|last=Lyons|first=John D.|author-link=John D. Lyons|date=1995|title=Review of Theory as Practice: Ethical Inquiry in the Renaissance|journal=Comparative Literature|volume=47|issue=4|pages=370–372|doi=10.2307/1771334|issn=0010-4124|jstor=1771334}}
{{Cite journal|last=Grubb|first=James S.|date=1993|title=Review of Theory as Practice: Ethical Inquiry in the Renaissance|journal=The Historian|volume=55|issue=4|pages=765–766|issn=0018-2370|jstor=24448832}}
{{Cite journal|last=Galdieri|first=Louis V.|date=1993|title=Review of Theory As Practice: Ethical Inquiry in the Renaissance.|journal=The Sixteenth Century Journal|volume=24|issue=2|pages=502–503|doi=10.2307/2542001|issn=0361-0160|jstor=2542001}}
{{Cite journal|last=Kelley|first=Donald R.|date=1993|title=Review of Theory as Practice: Ethical Inquiry in the Renaissance.|journal=Renaissance Quarterly|volume=46|issue=3|pages=567–569|doi=10.2307/3039107|issn=0034-4338|jstor=3039107|s2cid=163396010 }}
{{Cite journal|last=Gavitt|first=Philip|date=1993|title=Review of Theory As Practice: Ethical Inquiry in the Renaissance.|journal=The Sixteenth Century Journal|volume=24|issue=4|pages=969–971|doi=10.2307/2541644|issn=0361-0160|jstor=2541644}}
{{Cite journal|last=Kraye|first=Jill|author-link=Jill Kraye|date=1993|title=Review of Theory as Practice: Ethical Inquiry in the Renaissance|journal=The American Historical Review|volume=98|issue=4|pages=1234–1235|doi=10.2307/2166664|issn=0002-8762|jstor=2166664}}
{{Cite book|last=Struever|first=Nancy S.|title=Rhetoric, Modality, Modernity|date=2009|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-77750-4|language=en}}Reviews of Rhetoric, Modality, Modernity:
{{Cite journal|last=DeForest|first=Benjamin|date=2011|title=Review of Rhetoric, Modality, Modernity|journal=MLN|volume=126|issue=3|pages=654–658|doi=10.1353/mln.2011.0037|issn=0026-7910|jstor=23012683|s2cid=144883242}}
{{Cite journal|last=Gross|first=Daniel M.|author-link=Daniel M. Gross|date=2011|title=Review of Rhetoric, Modality, Modernity|journal=Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric|volume=29|issue=2|pages=218–220|doi=10.1525/rh.2011.29.2.218|issn=0734-8584}}
{{Cite book|last=Struever|first=Nancy S.|title=The History of Rhetoric and the Rhetoric of History|date=2009|publisher=Ashgate|isbn=978-0-7546-5999-0|language=en}}Reviews of The History of Rhetoric and the Rhetoric of History:
{{Cite journal|last=Rubini|first=Rocco|date=2012-03-01|title=Struever's "Rhetoric as Inquiry"|url=https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/p-n-r/article/45/1/89/290255/Struever-s-Rhetoric-as-Inquiry|journal=Philosophy & Rhetoric|language=en|volume=45|issue=1|pages=89–98|doi=10.5325/philrhet.45.1.0089|s2cid=143293852|issn=0031-8213|url-access=subscription}}
{{Cite book|title=Rhetoric and Medicine in Early Modern Europe|date=2012|publisher=Ashgate|isbn=978-1-4094-3022-3|editor-last=Pender|editor-first=Stephen|language=en|editor-last2=Struever|editor-first2=Nancy S.}}Reviews of Rhetoric and Medicine in Modern Europe:
{{Cite journal|last=Katinis|first=Teodoro|date=2016|title=Review of Rhetoric and Medicine in Early Modern Europe|journal=Early Science and Medicine|volume=21|issue=1|pages=97–99|doi=10.1163/15733823-00211p11|issn=1383-7427|jstor=24760409}}
{{Cite journal|last=Mack|first=Peter|author-link=Peter Mack (academic)|date=2014-05-01|title=Review: Rhetoric and Medicine in Early Modern Europe by Stephen Pender and Nancy Struever eds.|journal=Rhetorica|language=en|volume=32|issue=2|pages=202–204|doi=10.1525/RH.2014.32.2.202|issn=0734-8584}}
{{Cite journal|last=Gowland|first=Angus|date=2015|title=Review of Rhetoric and Medicine in Early Modern Europe, PenderStephen, StrueverNancy S.|journal=Bulletin of the History of Medicine|volume=89|issue=2|pages=344–346|issn=0007-5140|jstor=26309032}}