In Memoriam: Claire Beth Sponsler, 1954-2016

Claire Sponsler, the M.F. Carpenter Professor of English at the University of Iowa, died recently as the result of a cerebral aneurysm. She was 62 years old.

A native of Easton, Pennsylvania, Professor Sponsler was a graduate of the University of Cincinnati, where she majored in the Classics. She went on to earn a Ph.D. in English and comparative literature from Indiana University.

Professor Sponsler, who taught at the University of Iowa for 23 years, was the author of several books including Ritual Imports: Performing Medieval Drama in America (Cornell University Press, 2004), which won the Barnard Hewitt Award from the American Society for Theatre Research and The Queen’s Dumbshows: John Lydgate and the Making of Early Theater (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014).