In memoriam: E. Jane Doering, professor emerita

Published:September 03, 2024

Author:Dennis Brown

E. Jane Doering, professor emerita in the Program of Liberal Studies at the University of Notre Dame, died Aug. 23. She was 91.

Born the third of four daughters in a family of Irish heritage in Bergenfield, New Jersey, Elizabeth Jane O'Connor Doering earned a bachelor's degree at the New Jersey College for Women and a master's of education degree from Goucher College in Towson, Maryland. To continue her study of the French language, she attended summer school at Laval University in Quebec, where she met Bernard Doering, a fellow Francophile.

The couple married in 1958 and moved to Helena, Alabama, where they taught at a private secondary school for boys. After Bernard earned his doctorate from the University of Colorado, the Doerings moved to South Bend, where Jane taught French at St. Mary's Academy and St. Joseph High School and Bernard served on the faculty of Notre Dame's Department of Romance Languages and Literatures.

The Doerings established the University's study abroad program in Angers, France, two hours southwest of Paris by train, in 1966. They mentored six cohorts of Notre Dame students in a program that has offered more than 3,000 students the opportunity to become fluent in French and immerse themselves in French culture.

Jane earned a master's degree from Notre Dame and a doctoral degree from Northwestern University, both in French literature. She joined the Notre Dame faculty in 1992, teaching 19th- and 20th-century French literature and specializing in the study of the French philosopher Simone Weil. She published three books and authored more than three dozen articles on Weil and was a member of the American Weil Society and the international Association pour l'étude de la pensée de Simone Weil. She taught in Notre Dame's Teachers as Scholars program and the Forever Learning Institute of South Bend.

Doering was preceded in death by Bernard, her husband of more than 60 years. She is survived by four children and 10 grandchildren.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated Oct. 8 at the Church of Our Lady of Loretto at Saint Mary's College.

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