James Karman, Emeritus Professor of English at Cal State/Chico, was awarded the Robinson Jeffers Association's Lawrence Clark Powell Award for Distinguished Scholarship at the 2016 association meeting in Carmel, California, February 19-21.
Karman was recognized for the completion of his three-volume Complete Letters of Robinson Jeffers, with Selected Letters of Una Jeffers (Stanford University Press, 2009, 2012, & 2015). Karman is only the fourth scholar to receive the award, which was first presented to Professor Robert J. Brophy in 1998.
The presentation stressed "the magnitude of this effort and accomplishment, and its crucial place in Jeffers scholarship." The RJA program states that "In addition to scrupulous editing of the letters, Jim (with essential help from his wife Paula) tracked down nearly all the references and allusions in the letters, which makes the reading of the endnotes to each letter as informative and entertaining as the letters themselves."