26.3079, All: Obituary: Elisabeth ‘Lisi’ Oliver (1951-2015)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-26-3079. Mon Jun 29 2015. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 26.3079, All: Obituary: Elisabeth ‘Lisi’ Oliver (1951-2015)

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Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2015 14:13:01
From: Rafael Orozco [linguistics at lsu.edu]
Subject: Obituary: Elisabeth ‘Lisi’ Oliver (1951-2015)

 
Lisi Oliver, Alumni Professor of English and Linguistics at Louisiana State
University, died unexpectedly on Sunday June 7, 2015, just 63 years old. She
is survived by her brothers Bim, Gus, and Peter as well as by her niece, Lily,
and her nephew, Matthew.

Lisi was born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1951. She attended Smith College in
Northampton, Massachusetts. Upon graduating with a B.A. in theater and speech
in 1973, she entered the world of opera, working for several years as an
assistant to Sara Caldwell at the Opera Company of Boston. Seeking new and
different professional challenges, she enrolled at Harvard University, where
she earned a master’s degree in 1989 and her PhD in Linguistics in 1995. Lisi
joined the English/Linguistics faculty at LSU in 1996, concentrating on early
medieval and comparative law but serving, as she put it, as ''a type of
utility infielder, teaching courses in historical linguistics, History of
English, Old English, Old Irish, Old Norse, Pidgins and Creoles and Arthurian
literature.” Lisi became a keystone member of the English Department faculty
and a vital and visible scholar in medieval studies in the United States and
Europe, earning recognition by her peers as a leader in her field. She
authored several books on early English law including "The Beginnings of
English Law" (University of Toronto Press 2002), an edition, translation and
commentary on the earliest laws in the English language, and "The Body Legal
in Barbarian Law" (University of Toronto Press 2011), a study of personal
injury tariffs in Germanic law from 450 to 850. 

She will always be remembered for her dedication to teaching and learning
which made her an inspiring professor and colleague. Her goal at LSU, she once
said, was to make ''a large university feel like a small and dynamic learning
community.'' Lisi’s career was distinguished by her extraordinary energy. She
earned many university awards for undergraduate teaching and advising, as well
as the LSU English Graduate Student Association Award for Outstanding Graduate
Faculty Member. In addition, Lisi earned numerous research awards, including
LSU's prestigious Distinguished Research Master award. In 2014 she earned an
American Council of Learned Societies Collaborative Fellowship (with Stefan
Juranski of SUNY Brockport) for the project entitled The Laws of Alfred and
Ine: An Edition and Interpretative Commentary. Lisi was also an outstanding
faculty leader and mentor who served as director of several programs, notably
the Interdepartmental Linguistics Program, which she directed from 2010 to
2014. 

As important as academics were to her, it only constituted a part of Lisi's
life, which also revolved around music (ukulele, mandolin, and singing),
bicycling (in Louisiana and France), rooting for her beloved Lady Tigers
basketball team, and –most importantly– her dogs, Sadie, Jasper and Pilot.
Lisi touched many lives with her keen intellect, her infectious and eccentric
sense of humor, and her unbounded generosity. She couldn't help but make
friends with everyone she met.
 


Linguistic Field(s): Not Applicable



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