07/23/2025
It is with considerable sadness that we report that our teacher, friend, and former colleague, Regina Janes, died this past Sunday. Our condolences go out to all who knew her. The following message went out to the Skidmore community today:
Dear Skidmore Community,
I write with the sad news that Regina Janes, a prolific scholar and dynamic teacher whose expansive intellect and wit left a lasting imprint on colleagues and generations of students, has died. She was 78.
Regina passed away on Sunday, July 20, following a recent illness. She joined our faculty in 1976 and retired in 2018.
Regina’s research and teaching ranged widely — from satire and the Enlightenment to Latin American fiction. She was the author of several acclaimed books, including “Gabriel García Márquez: Modes of Reading (1991)” and “Losing Our Heads: Beheadings in Literature and Culture,” which grew out of her 1990 Moseley Faculty Research Lecture. Her most recent was “Inventing Afterlives: The Stories We Tell Ourselves About Life After Death” (2018).
“She was a scholar of unique breadth, with publications that spanned the likes of Swift, Fielding, Coetzee, Woolf, Sontag, and cinema,” wrote Associate Professor and Chair of the English Department Timothy Wientzen. “When I think of Regina, I think of someone who had an almost addictive relationship to culture. She loved opera, drama, and musicals, was a frequent attendee at department and Salmagundi events, and was an ambitious traveler.”
In the classroom, Regina was known for her high expectations and deep knowledge.
“Not just a productive writer but an educator with consistently high standards, Regina has dazzled students with her ‘encyclopedic’ knowledge,” wrote Professor Susannah Mintz in a tribute for Regina’s retirement. “She is rigorous and exacting, and students often remark on how much more they learn … she is also praised for her ‘amazing’ ability to excite their interest in difficult — and one must say often quite lengthy — 18th-century prose.”
Beyond the classroom, Regina served in numerous leadership roles, including as director of the Asian Studies Program, president of Phi Beta Kappa, and chair of the Committee on Appointments, Promotions, and Tenure. She was also a longtime contributor to Salmagundi magazine.
"When Regina Janes arrived at Skidmore more than 40 years ago, she impressed everyone who met her as one of the most brilliant, learned, and witty people we’d ever attracted to teach at the College," said Salmagundi Executive Editor Peg Boyers, who described her as an "inspiring colleague and an indispensable friend." "Of course, the editors of Skidmore’s quarterly magazine Salmagundi recruited her at once to participate in its conferences, to write often for the magazine, and to dazzle the famous writers she was commissioned to interview for our pages, from Carlos Fuentes to Cabrera Infante."
The child of a Navy family, Regina was born in Bath, Maine, on Aug. 22, 1946, and grew up in several locations in the United States and abroad, including in Hawaii and Egypt. She earned her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University.
She is survived by her son, Charles Woolley of New York City.
She will be buried at 11 a.m. tomorrow, Wednesday, July 23, in the Dell at Vale Cemetery in Schenectady. All are welcome to attend.
In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made in her name to organizations Regina cherished, including Opera Saratoga, the Glimmerglass Festival, Planned Parenthood, the World Wide Fund for Nature, and Vermont Public.
On behalf of the Skidmore community, I extend heartfelt condolences to Charles and Regina’s friends, colleagues, and former students.
Sincerely,
Marc C. Conner
President
