Skip to Content
  • Browse
  • Past Issues
  • Search

Arts and Letters

Wagner History

Wagner News

Inside Sports

Alumni Stories

Obituaries

Alumni Events

From the President

Feature Stories
Summer 2017
Fall 2016
Winter 2015-16
Summer 2015
Fall 2014
Winter 2013-14
Summer 2013
Fall 2012
Summer 2012
Fall 2011
Summer 2011
Fall 2010
Summer 2010
Fall 2009
Summer 2009
Fall 2008
Summer 2008

Retirement Profile: Dr. Peter Sharpe

SHARE
PRINT
BACK TO TOP
Retirement Profile: Dr. Peter Sharpe
Retirement Profile: Dr. Joedy Smith
Retirement Profile: Dr. Ammini Moorthy

 

This year, six longtime Wagner professors participated in the College’s voluntary resignation program and retired as of the fall semester of 2013 or the spring semester of 2014. This story is the second in a series of profiles to honor these faculty members and all they have given to the College. Please contribute your appreciation for these professors to the comments section below.

Peter Sharpe

Professor of English

Dr. Peter Sharpe speaks at a retirement reception.
Dr. Peter Sharpe speaks at a retirement reception. Photo by Anna Mulé

Peter Sharpe came to Wagner in 1994 to teach journalism and English. He had completed his doctorate at New York University two years prior, an interval he spent as a journalist at the United Nations.

“That job would have killed me in five years,” Dr. Sharpe says, recalling the time he covered a midnight emergency meeting of the Security Council during the war in Kosovo. “So I came to bucolic ‘Wagner College on the hill.’ I managed to extend my life rather pleasantly while there, of course.”

Along with Prof. Claire Regan, Dr. Sharpe designed a new minor in journalism at Wagner. He established courses in African-American, Irish and Southern literature — the last including what he calls his “pet” courses, Southern Women Writers and Growin’ Up in Dixie. To this day, he says, he loves reading Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Eudora Welty, and many others. He also served as an advisor to The Wagnerian (the student newspaper) and Nimbus (the student literary arts magazine), and as a member of the editorial board of the undergraduate research journal.

“It’s true what they say,” he notes. “It all goes by in a flash. Suddenly you’re old and sitting in a rocker wrapped in an afghan plucking a banjo. Reminds me of a Flannery O’Conner character, General Tennessee Flintrock Sash, who was dressed in a Civil War outfit once every year and wheeled out to be displayed next to other war artifacts, but was too old to remember whether or not he had actually participated in the conflict. I’m not quite there yet, but literature provides exempla of how it could all turn out.”

Dr. Sharpe elected to retire because of his wife’s battle with recurring cancer. This ended his time at Wagner just short of two decades.

“I decided to step down from my post and join the fight with her full time,” he says. “It’s bittersweet to leave behind the teaching life, and especially those students who were expecting me to walk into their classes this past fall. I felt — and still feel — I have some good teaching days ‘in the tank,’ but at the same time, it’s a privilege to care for someone.”

Dr. Sharpe also plans on spending his retirement looking for other “worthy fights” to engage in as an activist — on issues ranging from fracking to puppy mills.

“I would advise,” he notes on his retirement, “that one laugh as often as possible, drink only fine red wine and single malt, listen closely and often to jazz, read poetry aloud once a day, and root hard for your favorite teams. Also, it’s a good idea to rotate your tires every 5,000 miles, avoid processed food and keep an eye on your blood pressure. Follow a path, preferably the path to enlightenment and not the refrigerator. And if that isn’t enough to get you there, bear in mind the inimitable words of Samuel Beckett: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” — Jason Borelli ’97 | For Wagner Magazine | November 5, 2013

 

READ MORE

  • A tribute to Peter Sharpe from the English department
  • Retirement profiles of Professor John Jamiel, Dr. Ammini Moorthy, and Dr. Joedy Smith
  • faculty
SHARE
PRINT

Related Stories

image description

Intellect and Inspiration

Nov 15, 2016 New dean of civic engagement is an expert in using the arts for social change.
image description

Alumni Relations
Team Members

Sep 17, 2015 Read about Rebecca Colucci Kelly ’06 and Heather Wolf ’15, staff members in the Office of Alumni Relations.
image description

Serving Alma Mater

Sep 17, 2015 John Carrescia ’99 M’06 and Christian Miller ’84 M’88 join the College's administrative team.
CLASS NOTES
OBITUARIES
CONTACT US

  • Samantha hill ’97

    What a wonderful piece! Great job jason borelli!!!

LATEST NEWS

image description

What’s Inside: The Printmaking Studio

In Parker Hall’s basement, Professor Bill Murphy shares his expertise in drypoint etching, a style of intaglio printmaking.

image description

History Makers: Peter Berger ’49 H’73

A Wagner philosophy major who became ‘one of the greatest sociologists of religion and modernity.’

image description

A Place to Think

A Wagner student opens a place of new opportunities — a library for girls — in her home country, Afghanistan.

image description

A Fund for Mutual Understanding

Walter Kaelber, professor of religious studies, was named this fall to the new Robinson Family Chair of Comparative Religion.

  • About the Magazine
  • Give to Wagner
  • Wagner Newsroom
  • Wagner Home
FOLLOW US

© 2018 All Rights Reserved