In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, published the day before Halloween in 1986, Senn said he was fascinated with folklore because “it shows that we as human beings are related” and helps people “explain the world of humans, of nature and the ‘other world.’” The news media regularly tapped into his expertise, especially around Halloween, when television and radio stations would ask for his take on occult legends. “Then he began listening to their stories and that is what came out over and over and over again,” Barbara said. Barbara Senn, his wife of 53 years, said he wasn’t looking for vampires and werewolves when he first began visiting Romanian villages to interview people about their local legends. He and his family lived in the southeastern European country for months at a time during the ’70s and ’80s. He received numerous awards, including two Fulbright Research Fellowships and two International Research and Exchanges Board grants, to study folklore in Romania. His book, Were-Wolf and Vampire in Romania, was published by a division of Columbia University Press in 1982.
But perhaps no country cast a greater spell on him than Romania.īoth in and out of the classroom, Senn became known as an authority on the otherworldly, especially tales of Transylvanian werewolves and vampires. His wide-ranging interests drew him out of the halls of academia to research Incan traditions in Peru’s Sacred Valley and to the windswept coast of northwestern France, where he took students to study Breton folklore. Senn also served as a principal adviser for European Studies. He teamed up with professors to teach courses that transcended fields of studies, including an interdisciplinary exploration of the future that he and Professor of Political Studies Sharon Snowiss co-taught in the ’90s called: Year 2012: Utopia or Oblivion?. At Pitzer, his classes included everything from Introductory French and French Civilization and Folklore to explorations of modernism in literature, science and the arts. He taught at Pitzer for more than 30 years, from 1970 to 2004. (July 14, 2017)-Pitzer College Professor Emeritus of French Harry Senn, an expert in the language of Hugo, Proust and Camus as well as international folklore, died on July 4, 2017.
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