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Douglass S. Parker

Douglass S. Parker

  • May 27, 1927 - February 8, 2011
  • Austin, Texas
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Dr. Parker allowed me to audit his class one summer on Humor in Antiquities and had me participate in the class reading (i.e. out loud) of the Greek plays and also encouraged me to do some creative writing for the course. I showed him some drafts of short stories I had written and he was kind enough to offer some constructive criticisms for further drafts. He was very witty and funny on many occasions and inspired me to write poetry.

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Posted by: Kim Packard - Austin, TX - student   Sep 28, 2011

Dr. Parker allowed me to audit his class one summer on Humor in Antiquities and had me participate in the class reading (i.e. out loud) of the Greek plays and also encouraged me to do some creative writing for the course. I showed him some drafts of short stories I had written and he was kind enough to offer some constructive criticisms for further drafts. He was very witty and funny on many occasions and inspired me to write poetry.

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Posted by: Kim Packard - Austin, TX - student   Sep 28, 2011

~ Doug was my first Latin teacher, the second time I tried to learn the language. (A third time may yet await, on the horizon!) I remember him creating unreadable word roots with the Klingon font on his MacIntosh, to force his students to look at the ends of the words. A fine, brilliant man, and the only person of my acquaintance that I am sure had read both "The Anatomy of Melancholy" and "Gargantua and Pantagruel"!
Posted by: Outis - former student   Apr 03, 2011

It is a rare sort of scholar who can inspire the same level of enthusiasm in others that he holds in himself for his subjects. Dr. Parker roped me in on a class on "Improvisation" - the first time he taught that class, and kept me with his courses on Wit and Humor in Antiquity and Parageography.

He was a Scholar, Poet, Abuser of IBM Selectric Typeface Balls, Slayer of Trees for the mimeograph machine, transcriptor for Zeus, Jazz trombonist,

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Posted by: Matthew Legare - San Antonio, TX - Student   Mar 24, 2011

For several years I played in a small group with Doug around Austin. I was just one of many groups he played in. He lived for playing the trombone and was the best improviser I have ever met. He had a encyclopedic member of dixieland, jazz and popular favorites. I tried to learn from him.
Posted by: Larry Lake - Austin - fellow musician   Mar 18, 2011

Dr. Parker was by far one of my favorite proessors. I planned the my courses around what he was teaching. He has such a gift for teaching and believed in the process of helping students academically and emotionally. He instilled a great deal of confidence in me. I'm lucky to have known him and travel through fantasy lands with him as my guide. I remember what a fantastic whistler he was. That sound echoing through Waggoner I'll remember forever.


Posted by: Kristy Bartlett - Nashville, TN - Student   Mar 14, 2011

There are many reasons why the time I spent in Austin was exciting and interesting, and very pleasant. Having Douglass as a teacher was one of those reasons. He was immensely learned, but unlike some great scholars, he wore his learning so lightly, and with so much humour, that time spent with him was challenging, encouraging, and fun.
Douglass came up to the University of Kansas here in Lawrence to read his "Thyestes" and to speak to the English Department

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Posted by: Anne Shaw - Lawrence, KS - He was my dissertation advisor.   Feb 20, 2011

I took three classes from Dr. Parker in my UT academic career, starting with one which, in the hands of many other teachers, could have been deadly boring (about Greek and Latin influences in English) and made it not only bearable but enjoyable.

When he mentioned this other class he taught about the geography of imaginary places I was intrigued. Sounded bloody weird really, and it was. But my first round of Parageography was so much fun that I went for

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Posted by: Clyde Hoover - Austin, TX - Former student   Feb 19, 2011

During the 80s, I was a student in a new class that Douglass created called "Improvisation" that discussed all forms of improvisation - in music, jazz (since Douglass was animprovisational jazz trombonist), writing, etc. and the inner workings of the improvisational process. Even though my main studies were in the natural sciences, this was one of my most memorable classes... so much that when I graduated from UT-Austin, when applying for my first real job after college as a geophysicist,

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Posted by: Jeff W - Former student of Douglass   Feb 18, 2011

I've known Doug since I was a graduate student in classics at UT in the 1970's. Ever since, I have thought of him as the one genius I have known. So creative! He has always been an inspiration for me and will continue to be one.
Posted by: Jim Johnson - Sherman, TX - Former student and friend   Feb 16, 2011