Wieck, Carl F. 1937–

PERSONAL: Born October 13, 1937, in Louisville, KY; son of Herman D. (a photo-engraver) and Jean S. (a homemaker) Wieck; married; wife's name, Auli. Education: University of Louisville, B.A. (humanities), 1959; attended University of Berlin, 1959–60; Northwestern University, M.A. (English), 1961; Sorbonne, University of Paris, D.Univ. (American literature and civilization), 1966.

ADDRESSES: Home—Haiharankatu 11 A 7, 33710 Tampere, Finland. Office—c/o School of Modern Languages and Translation Studies, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland. E-mail—trcawi@uta.fi.

CAREER: University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, assistant professor, 1966–68; Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA, associate professor, 1968–73; University of Abidjan, Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Fulbright professor, 1973–76; University of Joensuu, Joensuu, Finland, acting senior lecturer, 1988–89; University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland, senior lecturer in American literature and American studies, 1989–2003, senior lecturer emeritus and docent, 2003–. Also worked as shipboard director for Council on Student Travel, education supervisor for Atlanta Urban Corps, field representative for U.S. Peace Corps, interpreter of French for U.S. Department of State, and teacher for an Upward Bound program.

MEMBER: Modern Language Association of America, Association of American Scholars, Nordic Association for American Studies.

AWARDS, HONORS: Fulbright grant for West Germany, 1959–60; Woodrow Wilson fellow, 1960–61.

WRITINGS:

Refiguring Huckleberry Finn, University of Georgia Press (Athens, GA), 2000.

Lincoln's Quest for Equality: The Road to Gettysburg, Northern Illinois University Press (DeKalb, IL), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS: Carl F. Wieck told CA: "As a teacher-scholar I believe that if you have something worth saying, it should be devoid of academic jargon, ideologically tolerant, open to the general reader, yet deserving of a scholar's attention. In Lincoln's Quest for Equality: The Road to Gettysburg, I strive to meet these criteria, with the focus more specifically historical. My published books have appeared late in my career simply because I have always believed that I should write for publication only when I felt I had something original to say. I have thus adamantly rejected what I consider to be the unhealthy emphasis in the academic world on publication for promotion—where quantity seems too often equated with quality—and have preferred to expend my energies in the classroom.

"In my own work I lay stress on a clear, accessible style, where le mot juste bears a critical burden and long-windedness is anathema. I take the position that each new sentence must add something new to the argument or else should be eliminated. Thus, I make every effort to avoid wasting a reader's time with needless repetition or space-filling rehashing of the work of others. Linguistic precision and tight logic are my personal goals, and they gain my respect whenever I encounter them.

"I have chosen the subjects of my work because these persons, in their own lives, have striven toward and reached an extremely high level of achievement, while endeavoring to maintain an unblinking attitude toward tolerance, justice, and moral values. I feel, as did the ancient Greeks, that human beings should dare to strive with gods, although the effort will ever be doomed to failure."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Literary Scholarship, 2002, Allen Gribben, "Mark Twain," p. 96.

American Studies in Scandinavia, 2001, Henrik Lassen, "Sounding the Depths: Wieck's Contextual Exploration of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," pp. 36-40; 2003, Joern Broendal, review of Lincoln's Quest for Equality: The Road to Gettysburg, pp. 95-97.

ANQ, fall, 2002, Stacey Margolis, review of Refiguring Huckleberry Finn, p. 60.

Choice, May, 2001, D. E. Sloane, review of Refiguring Huckleberry Finn, p. 1632; 2003, J. A. Rawley, review of Lincoln's Quest for Equality, p. 279.

Journal of American History, March, 2004, Kent Gramm, review of Lincoln's Quest for Equality, p. 1453.

Journal of Illinois History, summer, 2003, Earl Schwarz, review of Lincoln's Quest for Equality, pp. 149-150.

Journal of Southern History, February, 2004, Daniel Wilson, review of Lincoln's Quest for Equality, p. 149.

Rhetoric and Public Affairs, fall, 2003, Ferald J. Bryan, review of Lincoln's Quest for Equality, pp. 584-585.

Studies in the Novel, winter, 2002, Peter Schmidt, "Seven Recent Commentaries on Mark Twain," pp. 448-464.

ONLINE

Mark Twain Forum, http://www.yorku.ca/twainweb/ (March, 21 2001), William Hecker, review of Refiguring Huckleberry Finn.