Historian of the British Empire, founder of the British Studies seminar at The University of Texas at Austin, and a teacher and friend to generations of scholars on both sides of the Atlantic. This page gathers the stories, photographs, and sayings of the people whose lives he shaped, and keeps us connected in his spirit.
"He built a community that outlasted every fashion in the discipline, simply by insisting that good conversation among serious people was worth protecting."
From a colleague · placeholder, to be replaced with a family-chosen lineRoger was born in Detroit, Michigan, and found his calling in the study of the British Empire at St Antony's College, Oxford, which he always described as a transformative experience. After teaching at Yale, he came to The University of Texas at Austin in 1970 and made it his home for more than fifty years, holding the Kerr Chair in English History and Culture and serving as a Distinguished Teaching Professor.
In 1975 he founded the British Studies seminar at UT and presided over it for forty-five years. What began as a weekly gathering became an institution renowned in historical and literary circles, a place where scholars, students, diplomats, and writers sat together for lively conversation. Roger always said that Dagmar's warmth as a hostess was central to its success.
He wrote or edited more than sixty books, including the landmark Oxford History of the British Empire, and was honored with election to the British Academy, a fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and appointment as Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He was, above all, generous: with his time, his library, his wit, and his belief in the people around him.
Read the full obituary in the Austin American-Statesman, or the UT Department of History tribute.
My first British Studies lunch, I was terrified. Roger walked over, asked what I was working on, listened as if it were the most important thing he'd hear that week, and then introduced me to half the room. That was his gift. He made you feel you belonged.
The seminar in the Tom Lea Room, sometime around 1998. Roger at the head of the table, as always, sherry poured, about to ask the question nobody had thought of.
He never let a visiting speaker leave without a proper dinner, a good argument, and a book from his shelves pressed into their hands.
I sent him a chapter on a Thursday night. Friday morning there were four pages of notes in my inbox, every one of them kind and every one of them right. I still write with his voice in my head asking, "But what is the argument?"
Dagmar and Roger hosting the end-of-year garden party. I don't think anyone ever left early.
Roger built a community that outlasted every fashion in the discipline, simply by insisting that good conversation among serious people was worth protecting. We are all his students in that.
But what is the argument?
Sample · said at the end of nearly every seminar paperRead it twice. Then read what he read.
Sample · advice to a first-year graduate studentThe sherry is poured. Let us begin.
Sample · Friday afternoons, Tom Lea RoomHave one to add? Use the form above and choose "A Roger-ism."
Each dot is someone who has added to this page, placed by how they knew Roger. As the wall grows, so does the picture of the lives he touched: students who became professors, colleagues across three universities, scholars on both sides of the Atlantic.
Later, this can grow into a fuller map: where everyone is now, who studied with whom, and how the seminar's conversations traveled.
The family asks that gifts be directed to the Annual Wm. Roger Louis Distinguished Lecture on the British Empire and the US-UK Special Relationship, now being established at The University of Texas at Austin, so that the conversations he loved will continue.
Give to the Roger Louis LectureDonation link to be provided by UT Austin.
Roger spent forty-five years bringing people together around a table. This page is meant to keep that going. Join the British Studies community list to hear about future gatherings, the annual lecture, and one another's news.