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Obituaries

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In Memoriam Archive

A tenacious scholar and a loyal friend, Ben lived out the Reed ideal of a mind’s unrelenting pursuit of wisdom.

Ben Hemenway ’16

October 31, 2023, in Berlin, Germany.

A tenacious scholar and a loyal friend, Ben lived out the Reed ideal of a mind’s unrelenting pursuit of wisdom. At Reed, he wrote his thesis on linguistic alienation in Samuel Beckett’s novellas under Prof. Nathalia King [English]. He then lived in Germany for six years, teaching English as a second language on a Fulbright scholarship and earning a master’s degree in German studies at Humboldt University in Berlin, where he wrote his thesis on the drift of recursive and interlocking metaphors in Walter Benjamin’s writing. Ben was a brilliant writer, conversationalist, and reader, as well as a lover of aimless walks and bike rides. A kind, incisive, and open presence in this world, he spent too little time here and is sorely missed. —Contributed by Lyle Daniel ’17

Appeared in Reed magazine: Winter 2024