Sammy McLean papers, 1952-2003

Sammy McLean was a University of Washington professor of Germanics and comparative literature. Sammy was born on September 29, 1929 in El Dorado, Kansas. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a B.A. in German and French, and then earned a Ph.D. in Germanic Language and Literature at the University of Michigan. Sammy joined the University of Washington's Department of Germanics in 1967, after teaching at Dartmouth College and for the University of Maryland Overseas Program in England. He taught at all undergraduate and graduate levels in Germanics and Comparative Literature. He published a book on Bertolt Brecht; articles on Brecht, Franz Kafka, Gerhart Hauptmann, and the Double; reviews and abstracts; poems; and English translations of poetry and short prose fiction from German. In 1990 he retired as Associate Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and Germanics. He was a member of the Seattle Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, and a lifetime member of the American Literary Translators Association.

Sammy also had a lifelong interest in music. He played the trumpet in jazz bands when he was in high school and college, served as a member of an Air Force band in the 1950s, and, after retiring from the University of Washington, played with several local groups including the Magnolia Big Band and the Seattle Symphonic Band.

Sammy McLean passed away in Seattle at age 88 on August 6, 2018.