Konick retires as legendary, eccentric and without pants

Comparative literature professor Willis Konick, 77, who is famous to many for his open-mindedness and eccentric style of teaching, is retiring at the end of this quarter after more than 50 years at the UW.

Professor Konick, known simply as Willis to his students, entered the UW as a freshman in 1947 and received a bachelor's degree in history. At that point, he said, he knew he wanted to attend graduate school and study comparative literature.

Konick said he decided to specialize in Russian literature because he was fond of it. He learned Russian at the language school in the Army, where he spent two years. Konick was accepted to the first Russian-American student exchange program in the late 1950s and studied in Moscow for a year.

After finishing his Ph.D. in 1964, Konick joined the UW faculty and started teaching Russian language and literature. He later switched to comparative literature, following his passion to teach world literature and film.

Since then, the professor has traveled throughout the former Soviet Union, spent a year doing research in Finland as a Fullbright Fellow, became a member of the UW Teaching Academy and won the prestigious UW award for distinguished teaching.

Konick's teaching style is hard for many students to forget. He attempts to make complex ideas easier to understand by acting them out with students.

"I set up a situation and relate it to the work we are studying," Konick said. "The principle is to create tension."

During the 1960s, Konick became known for his illustration of a Dostoyevsky-style scandal scene. It involved him stripping down to his underwear, yelling and being slapped like one of the characters in the novel.

Konick said he acted this scene out in a few classes before he stopped.

"I didn't want to go into history as the guy who takes off his clothes," he said.

Konick said he developed this style while teaching Russian when he wanted his students to start thinking in Russian.

"A lot of it is done on the spot," he said. "And that's the secret."

Will Lasky, now a graduate student in international studies, took Konick's class on the films of Alfred Hitchcock and Bernardo Bertolucci in 1997.

"With Konick, for the first time I saw some beautiful serious movies," Lasky said. "And he showed me a new way of looking at them and appreciating them that I haven't been exposed to before."

Konick's grandson Jeremy Konick-Seese, a sophomore, is taking Konick's class about Stanley Kubrick this quarter.

"It's actually his eccentricity that makes it easy to understand his ideas," Konick-Seese said.

Konick-Seese created a Facebook group dedicated to his grandfather called "People Who Wish Willis Konick was Their Grandpa." The group, which started as an inside joke between Konick-Seese and a friend, now has 47 members.

Konick in the classroom is not very different from Konick in real life, his grandson said. The professor is passionate and honest about literature and film. He is also a classical music fan, loves photography and considers Kubrick one of this favorite directors.

"He wanted his last class ever to be about something he's really into," Konick-Seese said.

Although Konick said he enjoyed teaching immensely, he also said it's hard work.

"Because Willis has been here for so long, he has inspired so many people," Konick-Seese said. "And although he won't be at the UW anymore, he definitely left his mark."

Reach contributing writer Katya Yefimova at news@thedaily.washington.edu.