Dear Joe
Arnold spoke of you often, he valued your debate and engagement
imensely. He introduced your work to me. His sudden passing is a real
shock to all of us. I wondered whether you might be able to post one
or both of the obituaries below on the Peirce List?
Many thanks Keyan
Tomaselli
KEYAN TOMASELLI
Arnold Shepperson passed away on 29 September, 2006. UKZN
(University of KwaZulu-Natal) and the communities of scholars his work
has impacted have all lost a great scholar, a committed intellectual,
and a wonderful colleague. He died of a heart attack. Arnold served
for a time as editor of the "Under Fire" section of Critical Arts, and
co-wrote with me (and Joe Muller) a number of papers on the impact and
hstory of the journal.
A CCMS Honours and MA graduate, Arnold was employed by CCMS at various
times since he joined us in 1991 as a researcher, project consultant and
student research advisor. He mentored numerous students in the Public
Health Promotion via Education Entertainment (EE) Honours module, was
consulted by students on their MA and PhD dissertations and theses, and
he worked extensively with me on a variety of both University
and
contract research projects. Arnold was a key member of CCMS and
significantly helped to build its research and publication capacity over
the past 16 years. He introduced a strong philosophical component to our
cultural studies work and debates, guiding us in the process towards a
unique form of cultural studies globally. During his association with us
he co-authored scores of peer reviewed publications which appeared in
both local and international journals. Arnold was a leading contributor
to international debates on CS Peirce, a US philosopher on pragmatism
and semiotics, and he served for many years as one of the two South
African representatives on the Council of the International Association
for Semiotic Studies.
Arnold started his professional career as an industrial electrician on
the mines in the Witwatersrand. He registered at the University of
Natal at the age of
36, completing his undergraduate degree in
Philosophy and English. His goal was very specific: to learn about why
engineering professionals failed to heed warnings about safety issues in
mine shafts. He was concerned about how the notion of `safety' was
constructed by mine management, and he served as an expert witness for
the union with regard to one accident when a number of miners were
killed. Arnold raised funds while a PhD student in the Centre for
Cultural and Media Studies (CCMS) to conduct a contract research project
for the Safety in Mines Advisory Committee in which he explored the
semiotics of hazard. His report engaged assumptions about cultures of
safety and he suggested ways of engaging discourses about safety in
relation to implementation of culturally appropriate diagnostic
mechanisms. This was also partly the subject of his PhD, which drew
additionally on his contributions
to my Kalahari "from Observation to
Development" research project, in which he played a key theoretical
role.
Arnold significantly contributed also to the writing up of the
Department of Health's Beyond Awareness I media and education strategy
in the mid-1990s, developed under the auspices of the Minister's
Advisory Committee on HIV/AIDS and STDs. The EE module introduced
later gave him an opportunity to thus also apply his talents on
empirical projects undertaken by the many students whom he mentored.
Arnold was accepted to Honours graduate study in CCMS in 1991 when he
was introduced to CS Peirce's work, a conceptual trajectory in which he
was soon to specialize and in which he became internationally renowned.
He published by himself and and co-authored articles in journals on the
topic of semiotics in S - European Journal for Semiotic Studies, Social
Semiotics, Acta Fennica Semiotica, and worked
with me also on numerous
other articles and book chapters. His contribution to ongoing debate
via the web-based Peirce List was often positively commented on by his
and our peers. Arnold's influence on my own work is well known, and our
close research and publishing partnership continues to date, with a
number of papers still in press and in preparation. Arnold was probably
the most accomplished Perciean scholar in South Africa.
Work done by Arnold in the late 1990s on the National Research
Foundation sponsored State of the Discipline: Communication Studies
report, is well known to the South African communication and media
studies scholars. This work was published in Communicare and Ecquid
Novi, and two international journals. Arnold's work will via this
project have impacted nationally on the discipline. Many members of the
SA Communication Association (SACOMM)
will have interacted with Arnold
at its annual conferences, via his publications, and as an external
examiner for the cinema studies modules at the Nelson Mandela
Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth. Arnold will be sorely missed
by his colleagues, his peers, and his loss to UKZN and the Peircian
scholarly community is incalculable. Arnold gave new meaning to the
practice of team work, collegiality and the academic enterprise. It
was my privilege to have worked with him very closely for 16 years.
Arnold is survived by his partner, Miriam, and his adopted son,
Eddie-Lou, his mother and his sister. A minute's silence and a short
eulogy were offered at the SACOMM AGM held on Friday in Stellenbosch.
Arnold will be missed by all of us. Our sympathies are extended to his
family.
Keyan Tomaselli
Culture, Communication and Media Studies
University of
KwaZulu-Natal, Durban
JOHAN JACOBS
It is with great sadness that we have learnt of the death of Arnold
Shepperson, from a heart attack, early this morning, Friday 29 September
2006. Arnold was a distinctive part of the intellectual life on the
Howard College campus, and of our Faculty, for the last twenty years. He
first came to the University of Natal in 1986 from a working background
in electrical engineering, but after trying out Engineering, he decided
in 1988 that he was temperamentally and intellectually better suited to
the Humanities. It was here that he really came into his own, and
finding himself in his element in the world of philosophical ideas and
social theory, he graduated with an excellent BA degree in 1990,
majoring in English and Philosophy. He then began his long affiliation
with the postgraduate programme in Culture and Media Studies, obtaining
an Honours degree in 1991 and a Masters degree in 1994.
In 1998 he
registered for a doctoral degree in CMS. Arnold relished academic
scholarship, and was passionate about making his own contribution to it.
He managed in a remarkable way to involve himself over the years in
research in the very widest sense in his discipline and in the Faculty
in general. He authored and co-authored articles and chapters in books
together with his supervisor, produced an impressive research report for
the Safety in Mines Research Advisory Committee, and built up a
respectable publication record. He was also extremely active as an
academic mentor to masters students in the Faculty, assisting them with
drawing up their research proposals and structuring their dissertations,
and helping them to develop their research skills and to formulate their
arguments. Arnold gave of himself unstintingly, and did much of this
work even at the cost of his own research. Arnold persevered with his
PhD studies,
despite extraordinary financial hardship and personal
problems that made it difficult at times for him to see his way forward
clearly, and it is particularly sad that his death has come just as his
doctoral research had gained focus and momentum towards completion. He
found his true intellectual home when he changed to Philosophy last
year, and was well on his way to giving a Peircean response to Arrow's
paradox of social choice, rejecting Arrow's explicitly nominalist
assumptions on ordering, and using instead the idea of sequence, as
found in Peirce. Arnold will be sadly missed by his colleagues and
fellow students in the Faculty, and by all of us who came to know and to
value his special qualities over the years. We extend our sympathies to
his mother and his sister, and to his partner Miriam and his adopted
son, Eddie-Lou, who was a particular source of joy and pride to Arnold,
and who brought much love and happiness into his
life. Johan
JacobsProfessor J U Jacobs
Deputy Dean (Postgraduate Studies)
Faculty of Humanities, Development and Social Sciences
University of KwaZulu-Natal
Howard College Campus
Durban 4041
South AfricaTel: +27 (0)31 2602327
Fax: +27 (0)31 2602372
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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I will pass on any condolences received to Arnold's family. We are
also opening a bank account for donations to be made over to Miriam to
assist her with Eddie-Lou's education.
Keyan
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