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Bruce Edwards: 1952-2015; B.G. professor noted authority on ‘Narnia’

Bruce Edwards: 1952-2015; B.G. professor noted authority on ‘Narnia’

Bruce L. Edwards, Jr., a noted scholar on C.S. Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia and a retired professor and administrator at Bowling Green State University, died Oct. 28 in Methodist West Hospital in Katy, Texas. He was 63.

He and his wife, Joan, were traveling in Texas when an aortic aneurysm he was unaware of burst, his wife said. They settled in Willow, Alaska, after his 2012 retirement.

Mr. Edwards wrote several books on Mr. Lewis and the Narnia novels and edited a four-volume reference set about the late author. Timed for the 2005 release of a film based on a Narnia tale, Mr. Edwards wrote two books. He also traveled the country as part of a “Narnia on Tour” lecture series.

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“Lewis wanted to write books that anyone can enjoy,” Mr. Edwards told The Blade. The Narnia books were not explicitly Christian allegory, but “... for Christian readers and reviewers, the parallels will stand out.”

Mr. Edwards, in nearly 32 years of teaching at BGSU, was chairman of more than 100 master’s theses committees and more than 30 doctoral dissertation committees.

“He was a cheerleader,” his wife said. “He enjoyed helping people succeed.”

He had strong convictions, “but that never prevented him from having serious engagement with people with whom he didn’t necessarily agree,” said Alice Calderonello, a retired colleague in rhetoric and writing. “He was a kind and humane person.”

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He was a former associate dean in the college of arts and sciences and for distance learning and international programs. He also became an associate vice provost for academic technology.

He also taught Africana studies after a Fulbright fellowship to Nairobi. He’d been a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and had a yearlong professorship to the University Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. In 2005, through a Fulbright-Hays grant, he took a group of educators to Tanzania.

He was born Sept. 5, 1952, in Akron to Betty Lou and Bruce L. Edwards. He was a graduate of Akron Central High School. He had a bachelor’s degree in English from the University Missouri-Rolla, a master’s degree in English from Kansas State University, and a doctorate in literature and rhetoric from the University of Texas, Austin.

Surviving are his wife, Joan Edwards, whom he married Sept. 28, 1973; sons, Matthew, Justin, and Michael; daughter, Mary Sanford, and five grandchildren.

Memorial services will be at 6:30 p.m. today in Bowling Green Covenant Church, where he was an elder. Arrangements are by Schaffer Funeral Home, Defiance.

The family suggests tributes to bridgingthegapafrica.org or to the Bowling Green Pregnancy Center.

First Published November 5, 2015, 5:00 a.m.

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