Dana K. Greene 1942 – 2023

Dana Greene speaking at the Evelyn Underhill conference, Todi, 2019

We were deeply saddened to lose Dana Greene at the end of 2023.  We first encountered Dana in 2018, in planning the International Conference for the 100th anniversary of Evelyn Underhill’s 1919 biography of Jacopone.  Ambitiously, we wanted to have the world’s greatest living expert on Evelyn Underhill as a speaker at our conference.  Only a little research was needed to identify that person as the American scholar, Dana Greene.

Professor Greene had published the outstanding biography of Evelyn – Evelyn Underhill: Artist of the Infinite Life (1990), as well as edited collections of Evelyn’s most important articles, Evelyn Underhill: Modern Guide to the Ancient Quest for the Holy (1988) and of her notebooks, Fragments from an Inner Life: The Notebooks of Evelyn Underhill (1993).  She had also published many scholarly articles on Evelyn and was the President of the Evelyn Underhill Association.  Clearly, she was the person we wanted.  

But would such a distinguished scholar be interested in coming to Todi?  With some apprehension, we contacted her and invited her to speak at our Conference.

Dana graciously accepted our invitation and gave a wonderful presentation to our Conference in 2019.  Beyond this, we were also privileged to meet a remarkable person.  Dana was a rare combination of intellectual substance, deep faith, strong convictions and warm humanity.  Her family recall the guiding principles of Dana’s life as a commitment to the life of the spirit, to care for others, to the development of the mind and to justice in the world.

Dana made a vital contribution to our efforts to rediscover the real Jacopone.  If it was Evelyn Underhill who first explained Jacopone to us, it was Dana Greene who explained Evelyn Underhill to us.  Her great knowledge helped us to trace the crucial connection from Evelyn to Friedrich von Hügel, to St Catherine of Genoa and ultimately to Jacopone (we will discuss this in a forthcoming newsletter).  We will miss her expertise, but most of all, we will miss her warm friendship.

If it was Evelyn Underhill who first explained Jacopone to us, it was Dana Greene who explained Evelyn Underhill to us.