Bulletin of the Santayana Society, No. 17 Fall 1999

              The Santayana Edition
The Santayana Edition is now in place at Indiana University Purdue University
Indianapolis (IUPUI). I became the Dean of the School of Liberal Arts in August 1998,
but because of the edition's work schedule, the project did not move until one year later.
Kris Frost, Associate Editor, has joined me at IUPUI, and we have appointed a new Editor
for the edition. While I remain General Editor, Marianne Wokeck has agreed to serve
as Editor. She has the expertise and scholarship for this task, and I believe it best to let
her introduce herself:
My background, somewhat like George Santayana's, is bi-cultural. I grew up in GSttingen,
Germany (you may recall it from Santayana's illustration accompanying his "Psalm of Travel"),
and studied at the universities of Hamburg and Freiburg (majoring in English and History). My
Americanization began in Philadelphia as a Pulbright graduate exchange student at Temple
University. I completed my degree there with a dissertation in early American history ard,
because I was married by then, rejected the life of an academic gypsy in an extremely tight
academic market in favor of starting on an alternative career path. Richard S. Dunn (University
of Pennsylvania) and Mary Maples Dunn (first Bryn Ma wr, then Smith College) offered me in
associate editorship at the Penn Papers and within a year I advanced from most junior member of
the project team to the most senior editor. Upon successful completion of the four-volume select
letter press series of The Papers of William Penn (University of Pennsylvania Press), I initiated
and directed the Biographical Dictionary of Early Pennsylvania Legislators project — a
prosopographical study fundedby the neh and the Pennsylvania Assembly. After publication of
the first volume of Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania (University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1991). I left the project in the hands of my colleagues to pursue my interest in teaching at
iupui. That the Biographical Dictionary project is still going strong, with volume three coveriag
the revolutionary and early national periods about to be published, validates my vision and its
implementation and is testimony to me endeavor's significance. What I learned from ray
involvement with the Penn Papers and the Biographical Dictionary projects are the skills of
documentary and managing editors in an environment of scholarly teamwork and under the
pressures of uncertainty that stem from "soft-money" funding. Although I have not exercised
those skills much lately, I am convinced that I can refresh and update mem to make a contributi an
to the Santayana Edition. In doing so efficiently and speedily, I trust I can count on you to htlp
and teach me.
We are all excited about the new arrangements and location; IUPUI provides a more
stable setting for the edition, giving both Kris Frost and Marianne Wokeck positions
and support.
On another note, NEH did not fund our proposal for 1999-2001. However,
with the clear leadership of Marianne Wokeck, we completed a new proposal that was
submitted in September 1999 for 2000-2002, and we hope to have better fortune now
that the project is in place. It is worth noting that The Works of George Santayana joins
two other distinguished editions at iupui: The Peirce Project and The Papers of
Frederick Douglass.
HERMAN J SAATKAMP JR
General Editor, Santayana Edition
Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis