Gary Wihl, the Hortense and Tobias Lewin Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis, passed away on Thursday, July 17, 2025, in Clayton, Mo., after a prolonged struggle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 72 years old.

Wihl held the position of dean of Arts & Sciences from 2009 until 2012. Throughout his time in office, he increased the number of faculty members in Arts & Sciences, recruiting several prominent academic leaders, and spearheaded fresh scholarly initiatives, including a pioneering program for faculty research and development supported by the Mellon Foundation (with co-principal investigator Steven Zwicker). He also made progress in rectifying the faculty gender pay disparity and supervised renovations of Umrath and Cupples II halls.

“Gary was wholeheartedly dedicated to enhancing the faculty in Arts & Sciences and was particularly focused on attracting and nurturing junior faculty,” remarked Kit Wellmon, a philosophy professor within Arts & Sciences. “Though some felt that his focus on faculty hiring limited resources for other projects, the influx of distinguished scholars undeniably revitalized the college.”

Wihl was also a scholar specializing in 19th- and 20th-century English and American literature and wrote two significant monographs: “Ruskin and the Rhetoric of Infallibility” (1985) and “The Contingency of Theory: Pragmatism, Expressivism, and Deconstruction” (1994). Born in Canada and educated at McGill and Yale universities, he held leadership roles at Emory and Rice universities before joining WashU in 2009. He officially retired in 2021.

He is survived by his brothers and their partners, David (Chrysanthi) and Lloyd (Ivona); his sister, Joyce; and six nieces and nephews. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations are encouraged in Wihl’s name to the Foundation for Barnes-Jewish Hospital’s Sarah Greenberg Living Donor Champion Fund.

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