Gilbert Doho

Gilbert Doho, PhD, was a playwright and scholar who opened cultural worlds for students and showed an unforgettable concern for others.

For Hannah Clarke (CWR ’21; GRS ’21, public health), Doho was a joyful advisor, her study-abroad champion and the professor who helped weave old and new strands of her life together: her proficiency in French, family roots in the British West Indies and academic interest in neocolonial West Africa that was born in his classes.

He provided “an opportunity for me to develop my sense of self and my own identity,” Clarke said.

Doho, who died in December, spent 20 years at Case Western Reserve. He was an associate professor of French, a scholar of African Francophone literature and culture, and section head in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures.

He also was founding director of the interdisciplinary Ethnic Studies Program, created to enhance the university’s offerings on ethnicity and race. “He brought ingenuity and sheer passion to get it off and running,” said Jacqueline Nanfito, PhD, an associate professor of Spanish, who helped launch the program.

In classes, he shared his love of African culture with theatrical flair and often dressed in traditional African clothing. “As an educator,” Nanfito said, “he was legendary.”

Born in Cameroon, Doho focused his scholarship on West African literature and socio-political issues, writing frequently about injustices and grassroots empowerment.

But after government retaliation over activist plays he’d written, he came to the United States for academic freedom, said Cheryl Toman, PhD, who worked closely with him for years, first as a CWRU colleague and then after she moved to the University of Alabama, where she is a professor of French and chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Classics.

“He was tireless, he was brave, he was a good listener,” Toman said. “He knew we live in an imperfect world. He always played an active role in trying to make things better for everyone. 

“Not having his intellectual light, optimism and research,” she added, “is an enormous void for everybody.”

Clarke believes Doho’s personal experience profoundly affected the lessons he imparted in teaching post-colonial studies. “When you are colonized,” she said, “you’re told not to question anything. I think he was flipping that on its head [and telling students] instead of questioning nothing, to question everything … to have an infinite curiosity.”

Now a student at CWRU’s School of Medicine, Clarke acutely feels both the loss and Doho’s inspiration.

And one lesson from her undergraduate days is indelible. Clarke was having a bad day and missed a class of his, afraid she would cry during the session. When Doho later learned what happened, he told her: “’Come crying, and we’ll figure it out from there,’” she said. “There was such tenderness in that. I think about that often.”

Thanks to Doho, she brings that compassion to her work with patients. When she sees them crying, “I don’t get scared,” Clarke said. “I don’t shy away. I’m there so they aren’t alone in that moment.”