Byron Santangelo

Byron James Morrison Santangelo, 62, died on Sunday, 10 March 2024, in Bloomington, Indiana. He was an unflinchingly loyal father, husband, friend, and teacher. A true warrior, Byron fought for a more just world until his final days.

Born in Queens, New York, on 29 June 1961, to Helen Elizabeth (Beth) Morrison Santangelo and Gennaro Santangelo, Byron spent his early childhood in Binghamton, NY, Washington, DC, and Finland. His family moved to La Mesa, CA in 1967, where a free-range childhood shaped his identity. He loved the ocean: swimming, diving, and, above all, surfing. He graduated from Claremont McKenna College with a BA in English in 1984 and earned his PhD at the University of California-Irvine in 1993. His Southern California style stayed with him after he moved to the Midwest, first to teach at DePaul University in Chicago, then at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, and he ended his career at Indiana University-Bloomington.

Byron described himself as a nomadic intellectual, and he wrote and thought broadly, collaborating over the years with colleagues in psychology, geography, history, and ecology, both in the United States and abroad. His study of African literature began after graduate school, and a semester teaching in Dakar, Senegal, led him to expand upon this interest; he returned repeatedly, primarily to southern Africa to teach and collaborate. Writing primarily as Byron Caminero-Santangelo, Byron’s work on African ecocriticism forged new avenues of research, blending his expertise on the study of literary form and rhetoric with his deep commitment to environmental activism. His scholarship was wide-ranging, with articles and book chapters mapping out themes and ideas that extended the lines of argument proposed in his two pathbreaking monographs, African Fiction and Joseph Conrad: Reading Postcolonial Intertextuality (SUNY, 2005), and Different Shades of Green: African Literature, Environmental Justice, and Political Ecology (Virginia, 2015). In recent years he had turned to the study of creative nonfiction, emphasizing the role of storytelling in shaping our understanding of the climate crisis. This project blended his investment in the importance of narrative with his deep concern for the devastation of global heating on human and nonhuman life, and Byron was exploring literary path forward through his suggestion that climate nonfiction is “an art for our time.”

Byron’s casual cadences and mellow demeanor often masked the fiery passions of his spirit and his keen intellect. He was a fierce advocate for equity, a rigorous teacher and colleague, and an innovative scholar. A deeply committed intellectual, he insisted on pursuing an argument through to its fullest truth, while remaining a profoundly respectful listener, open to the words and experiences of others. Above all else, Byron was driven by an insistence on social and environmental justice, devoting himself to the struggle against institutional structures and historic processes that privileged some, as they discounted the lives and humanity of others.

Byron Santangelo was a celebrated professor. His teaching was a model of the craft, and both students and colleagues benefited from his generosity and compassion. Over the course of his career, he won multiple university teaching and mentoring awards and inspired lifelong devotion from his students. Byron’s classroom practice was based in a love of rigorous thought and a deep belief in ethical living, and he worked ceaselessly to draw attention to voices, perspectives, and forms of knowledge that have been rendered invisible by hegemonic discourses. His work on environmental issues and decolonial studies shaped the lives and scholarly trajectories of countless graduate and undergraduate students, as well as conversations with colleagues around the world.

In 2021, Byron moved with his wife Sara Gregg to Bloomington, where they began teaching at Indiana University. There he found a like-minded community of postcolonial and ecocritical scholars; these connections were just congealing when late in his second semester he was diagnosed with a rare cancer, Pancreatic Acinar Cell Carcinoma. Treatments sapped his considerable strength, and ultimately, he taught at IU for only one academic year. Nevertheless, he outlived the doctors’ prognosis due to his incomparable grit and steadfast determination to live life to its fullest.

Byron had a zeal for living, and he delighted in the exploring the world. Beginning in early childhood he traveled widely, living for extended periods in Italy, Portugal, Greece, and Hawaii. During graduate school he embarked on around-the-world airplane ticket, taking a formative, mostly solo, trek, which brought him across Asia, Oceania, and Europe. In Papua New Guinea, armed with only a handful of contact names, he paddled alone up the Sepik River in a canoe, exploring the culture and landscape and purchasing masks in the villages from artists who had crafted them using traditional materials. This journey deepened his already considerable love for art, and these pieces took a prized position in his vast collection of masks and sculpture from Oceania and Africa.

Wherever life took him, Byron loved being outside. Strolls in town, strenuous hikes in the mountains, and long walks in the country with his dogs were all sources of tremendous pleasure. An avid cyclist, he spent many joyful hours bicycling with friends, seeking out long rides and the steepest inclines. Moving to hilly southern Indiana was a dream, although he enjoyed just a few months riding the ravines around Bloomington. When at home, Byron was a voracious reader, and especially during chemotherapy he took great comfort sitting with a good book. Most meaningfully, he had a rare gift for friendship and he was the consummate listener, thriving on meaningful connection and ambling conversations over a well-mixed drink, a good meal, or a long walk.

Of all the ways Byron impacted the lives of others, his greatest imprint was on his family. He enjoyed raucous family dinners, poker games, walks, and trips. He was the beloved husband of Sara Gregg and the devoted father of Nicola Santangelo, Anton Santangelo, Thomas Gregg Hayes, and Caroline Gregg Hayes. He cherished his brother Whitney Santangelo (Beatrice). Byron placed great care into the relationships he nurtured over the decades, including his co-parenting partnership with former wife Marta Caminero-Santangelo. There will be no replacing him in any of our hearts

Celebrations of Byron Santangelo’s life will be held at Eskenazi Museum of Art (1133 E. 7th street, Bloomington) on April 14, 2:00-4:0 PM, with remarks beginning at 2:30 in the Martin Commons (2nd Floor).     Further details on memorial arrangements will follow. 

In lieu of flowers, gifts in his honor may be made to Greenpeace (https://www.greenpeace.org/international/) or 350.org (http://350.org).