David William Foster, 79, passed away on June 24, 2020. As a Regents Professor of Spanish and women and gender studies at ASU, he has written extensively on Argentine narrative and theater, and he has held Fulbright teaching appointments in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. He has also served as an Inter-American Development Bank professor in Chile. Foster has held visiting appointments at Fresno State College, Vanderbilt University, University of California-Los Angeles, University of California-Riverside, and Florida International University. He has conducted six seminars for teachers under the auspices of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the most recent in Sao Paulo in summer 2013.



David earned his degrees from University of Washington. As a newly minted Ph.D. in romance languages and literature, he arrived at ASU in 1966. His true north was the humanities. As he was quoted in a 2015 article, "Humanities is all about the description of the human soul and the life that soul lives.” In 2016, he marked 50 years teaching at ASU.

In 1989, Foster was named the Graduate College's Outstanding Graduate Mentor, and in 1994 he was named Researcher of the Year by the Alumni Association. He received the 2000 Armando Discepolo Prize for theater scholarship awarded annually by GETEA (Grupo de Estudios de Teatro Argentino y Latinoamericano) of the Universidad de Buenos Aires. In 2010, Foster was honored for his lifetime work on Argentine culture by the Centro de Narratoloia at a program held at the Argentine National Library. He is past president of the Latin American Jewish Studies Association.



David is survived by his wife, Virginia, a son, a daughter, two grandsons and a sister.



A celebration of David's life will be held on his birthday, Friday, September 11, 2020, at Brophy Chapel at 2:00 p.m. followed by a reception. Everyone is invited but please respond to https://fostersfolliesphx.blogspot.com

Memorial gifts may be made in David's memory to the Foster Latin-American Research Fellowship Endowment, ASU Foundation . (Source: Arizona Republic)