Roberta Markman; Writer, Professor

Roberta Markman, Cal State Long Beach professor who won statewide awards for her teaching. In 1982, Markman was named outstanding professor by the Cal State University Board of Trustees; a year earlier the Long Beach campus had given her the same title. Markman taught comparative literature, but was also a noted writer on the mythology of Mexico. With her husband, Peter, she wrote “Masks of the Spirit: Image and Metaphor in Mesoamerica” and “The Flayed God: The Mythology of Mesoamerica.” The professor also wrote several other books and articles and earned a number of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities for research in Mexico and Europe. Markman and her husband also collected Mexican modern and folk art and ritual dance masks. After growing up in Toronto and New York, she earned a bachelor’s degree in English at Hunter College and master’s degree in English and mythology at Columbia University. After six years teaching English at Pasadena City College, Markman joined the Cal State Long Beach faculty in 1968 and continued to teach through last fall. Markman was a local and national officer of the academic honor society Phi Beta Kappa and of the National Council of Teachers of English. Her age remained a closely guarded secret throughout her adult life, with her widowed husband commenting this week: “Lightning would strike me dead if I revealed it.” On Thursday in Huntington Beach of pancreatic cancer.