Morris Beja

Morris Beja, beloved husband of Ellen Carol Jones, died February 6, 2025. Born July 18, 1935, in the Bronx, New York, he was the son of Joseph Beja (Chios, Greece) and Eleanor Cohen Beja (Smyrna [now Ismir], Turkey) and the brother of Rachel Beja and Rebecca Beja Stoller (Leslie Stoller). In addition to his wife Ellen, he is survived and beloved by his son, Andrew Lloyd Beja (Jules Pieri), and his daughter, Eleni Rachel Beja (Thomas Yezerski), children of his first wife, Nancy Friedman Beja, who also survives him; his grandchildren Alexandra Katherine Beja (Roger McDonald) and Matthew Joseph Beja (Emma Netzel); and his great-grandson, Remington Joshua Beja. He is loved and mourned by his sisters and brothers-in-law Mary Jones Blane and Michael Blane, John Jones and Shari Belcher Jones; Richard Jones and Lisa Haselton Jones; his nieces and nephews Torey Stoller Bowen (Ted), Lloyd Spivak, Lauren Johnson, Allyson Vargas, Matthew Jones (Emily Martin Jones), Andrew Jones (Alicia Woodley), Elizabeth Jones Stambaugh (Michael Stambaugh), Peter Jones (Catherine Krips Jones), Paul Jones (Emily Moore Jones), Mary Faith Jones, Luke Jones, and Timothy Jones; and by his grand-nieces and nephews Zachary Kolin, Rebecca Kolin, Leslie Bowen, Phoebe Bowen, Hudson Jones, Weston Jones, Emma Jones, Galaxy Woodley, Titan Woodley, Chloe Stambaugh, Judah Stambaugh, Micah Stambaugh, Gabriel Stambaugh, Olivia Jones, Evelyn Jones, and Pierce Jones. A dearly loved nephew, Stephen Michael Jones, died in 1994.

Recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and two Fulbright Lectureships, Morris Beja was Academy Professor Emeritus of the Ohio State University, where he chaired the Department of English for eleven years and was honored with the Alumni Distinguished Teaching Award from the University, the Undergraduate Auxiliary Professor of the Year Award from the Department of English, and Student Council recognition for Outstanding Achievement for excellence in teaching from the Colleges of Arts and Sciences. He was a member of Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society, Phi Beta Delta Honor Society, the Academy of Distinguished Teaching, and the Emeritus Academy. In addition to lecturing nationally and internationally, he taught as the Carole and Gordon Segal Visiting Professor of Irish Literature at Northwestern University; Visiting Professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University; Fulbright Lecturer in American Literature at University College, Dublin; and Fulbright Lecturer in American Literature at the University of Thessaloniki, Greece.

 A world-renowned scholar, Morris Beja authored six books, including Epiphany in the Modern Novel and James Joyce: A Literary Life; edited scholarly editions of Collected Epiphanies of James Joyce: A Critical Edition and Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway; edited twelve collections of essays on twentieth-century literature and film, as well as published numerous articles in scholarly books and journals. Honorary Trustee for Life and recipient of the Lifetime Service Award of the International James Joyce Foundation, he served as the Foundation’s President for eight years, and Executive Secretary for twenty-seven years. He served on the Board of Consultants for the Zürcher James Joyce Stiftung for forty years. He was a founder, Executive Secretary, and Trustee of the International Virginia Woolf Society; Trustee of the Thomas Wolfe Society; President of the College English Association of Ohio; and Trustee and Advisor to the Community Film Association. He served on the Editorial Boards of thirteen scholarly journals and presses, acting as Chair of the Editorial Board of the Ohio State University Press. He held several professional consultantships, including for the National Endowment for the Humanities. He directed or co-directed nine national and international scholarly conferences, including “Samuel Beckett: Humanistic Perspectives” for which Beckett wrote the play, Ohio Impromptu.

In conversation this past summer with a Japanese scholar, Murray remarked, “We should live like Bloom,” the central character in James Joyce’s Ulysses. And thus it is no surprise that, for scholars across the globe, Murray was “most truly the ‘allroundman’ that Joyce described”; his death is “a terrible loss for everyone who knew him because he was one of the few who enhanced life and made it broader and deeper than most.” “His academic work lives forever; nonetheless he will be sorely missed by Joyceans around the world”; “he will always be an essential part of Joyce’s world, one of the greats who made Joyce so interesting and compelling”; he was “sui generis in his depth of knowledge and inspiring presence as well as in his great good humor.” “His intelligence, kindness, generosity, curiosity, and zeal made me think he might have been immortal. May we all live our lives so fully.” Murray was “someone who valued and practiced compassion. He had an enormous soul, and I know you and those who loved him will carry that soul forward on Earth.”

Murray loved so much in life: literature, film, music, art, all the beauty of the world and of human creation. His dry wit and expert storytelling delighted us all. We will celebrate all the ways Murray radiated his zest for life, his joy in his professional and scholarly work, his love for his family, friends, students, and fellow scholars in a Celebration of Life at the Faculty Club of the Ohio State University, 181 Oval Drive South, Columbus, OH 43210, on Sunday, April 6, 2025, at 2:00 p.m.

Murray cherished his friendships, and thus he hoped to honor one of his dearest friends, David Citino, by suggesting people could contribute in his memory to research on multiple sclerosis through the National Multiple Sclerosis Society: https://www.nationalmssociety.org. Murray was also a passionate advocate of human and civil rights; you may wish to contribute in his memory to an organization of your choice that strongly protects and defends human and civil rights.

Murray, my love for you is infinite and eternal.

love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O, no, it is an ever-fixèd mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand’ring bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

 —Shakespeare, Sonnet 116