Preface Kevin J. Harty and Barbara Tepa Lupack Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 2] This special issue of Arthuriana is a festschrift to honor Alan Lupack, one of the most influential, kind, and generous scholars of many things—Arthurian in particular, and medieval in general. And I am privileged to serve as co-editor, with Barbara Tepa Lupack, for these essays and co-facilitator for this special issue that honors someone whom Barbara and I have together known for almost ninety years. Barbara first met Alan as a colleague in the English Department at St. John’s University. They would go on, as everyone knows, to marry, collaborate, support each other, and, most importantly, to become true soul mates. Alan and I first became friends in 1971 as graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania, spending three years together—often in the same seminars—before going our separate ways to begin careers that somehow always allowed us to keep bumping into each other and thereby sustaining our friendship. Along the way, Barbara and I too became fast friends, and together we three have remained friends as well as collaborators—and, sometimes, coconspirators—in the several worlds of Arthuriana and medievalia. Alan took his honors undergraduate degree magna cum laude in English at Fordham University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He then went on to earn an MA in English at New York University before coming to Penn to earn his doctorate, which he completed in 1974 with a dissertation on Structure and Tradition in the Poems of the Alliterative Revival. Alan began his teaching career as a TA at Penn, and, upon earning his doctorate, he became, in succession, an adjunct at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, an instructor at St. John’s University, a senior lecturer in Poland at the University of Wrocław, and an assistant professor at Wayne State College. Upon leaving Wayne State College, Alan began what was to become his life work—his affiliation with the Rossell Hope Robbins Library at the University of Rochester. From 1988 until 2015, he was Director of the Robbins Library and the Koller-Collins Graduate English Center and a member of its board of stewards, while also holding a concurrent appointment as adjunct Professor in the Department of English. Under Alan’s careful direction, the Robbins Library became a welcoming home for scholars from around the globe and a venue for numerous exhibits, conferences, and public presentations that contributed immensely to the vitality [End Page 3] of the greater University’s (and city’s) intellectual life. What also marked his remarkable tenure at Robbins was Alan’s self-effacing interest in helping to produce several new generations of medievalists through the careful and patient mentoring that he provided to graduate students and junior scholars who came to use the invaluable resources of the Robbins collection—a collection which he not only curated but also expanded. While modesty may be one of the hallmarks of Alan’s remarkable scholarly career, his friends and colleagues have not hesitated to recognize and honor his many important contributions to the fields of Arthurian and medieval studies. Alan was awarded the inaugural Norris J. Lacy Prize for Outstanding Editorial Achievement in the Field of Arthurian Studies in 2008, the Lehman Senior Scholar Fellowship at the Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies at the Norman Rockwell Museum in 2014, and the Mythopoeic Society Scholarship Award for the best scholarly book in myth and fantasy studies in 2001 (for King Arthur in America). Alan’s scholarly influence and importance can also be seen in the many editorial positions that he has held. He is, or has been, a member of the Editorial Board for the Palgrave Macmillan monograph series Studies in Arthurian and Courtly Cultures (2004–present), the Associate Editor of TEAMS Middle English Texts (1995–present), a member of the Editorial Board of TEAMS Middle English Texts (1994–1995), a member of the Editorial Board of Arthuriana (1994–present), editor of The Round Table: A Journal of Poetry and Fiction (1984–1999), and editor of the journal of Arthurian studies Avalon to Camelot (1986–1989). Alan is...