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Ray Mondini (1940-2022) taught in the various iterations of the San Francisco Art Institute’s Humanities, Letters and Science, and Liberal Studies Departments from 1968 through 2004. Ray was educated at S.F. State, the University of Perugia, and also studied Japanese Culture and Zen Buddhism for four years with Shunryu Suzuki. A dynamic lecturer, Mondini was influential to legions of SFAI students. (For instance, Ray proved “tremendously important” to Kehinde Wiley “for acquainting him with poststructuralist texts…classic African and African American writing” as well as “for introducing him to the work of British film and queer-studies specialist Richard Dyer who had just publishedWhite: Essays on Race and Culture.”) Mondini served as president of the faculty senate for decades. He was the longtime chair of the Humanities Department, always incorporating current ideas and the “Methodologies of Modernism'' into the curriculum while developing a faculty that included Angela Davis and Kathy Acker along with Ed Guerrero, Rupert Garcia, Zeese Papanilolas, Suzanne Lacey, Richard Fiscus, Diane Levitin, Frank Oppenheimer and many more. Ray was a member of the Dolphin Swimming and Boating Club as a devoted bay swimmer, rower, runner, pilot, and weightlifter. Rest in Peace my dear friend.
With permission, SFAA is re-posting the emails Jeff Gunderson Librarian/Archivist Anne Bremer Memorial Library has been sending out since March 2020. Please enjoy this magnificent archive.
