Piskor Professor of English Sidney Sondergard is a renaissance man.  Not only is that era one of his scholarly interests; he also has an electic array of others. 
 
Sondergard, who received his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, specializes in early British literature, including the Medieval and Renaissance periods. But in his 24 years at SLU he’s also delved into modern literature, popular culture, film studies, screenwriting and Asian studies, especially Chinese literature.  He was responsible for reviving St. Lawrence’s dwindling theatre department in the 1990s, establishing today’s performance and communication artsdepartment. He says that it has been gratifying to watch the major evolve into something so meaningful to students.

While teaching, Sondergard also found time to learn the Chinese language, which he is currently applying toward translating the first complete English edition of Pu Songling’s Strange Tales from Liaozhai. The tales consist of 500 short stories based on local accounts of anomalies in Chinese history that have been elaborated and expanded over time. He describes the stories as monster and zombie tales, which are very important to Chinese culture.

Sondergard has taught courses in European and American popular culture, early modern European and Asian literature and advanced screenwriting. His articles have appeared in journals such as Mediaevalia, The American Journal of Semiotics, Studies in Scottish Literature, Studies in Philology and Theatre Survey.

Sondergard also enjoys playing alto and soprano saxophone as well as keyboards and recorder, and listening to music. He sees music as another form of communication and imagination, and encourages students to expand their music tastes by posting a daily playlist of songs on his office door.

--Meggie Quackenbush ’10