Robert Sewell Cantwell

Robert "Bob" Cantwell died surrounded by his loving family on July 3, 2026 following a sudden and unexpected stroke. He was 81.

Bob will be profoundly missed by his wife Lydia Wegman; his daughters, Madeline Miller and Matilda Rose Cantwell; their spouses Will Miller and Angela Bardawil; his grandchildren, Olin, Haical, Owen, Dorothy, and Freddie; his niece Laura Wegman and nephew Donovan Corliss and their children, Ezra and Lev Corliss; his nephew David Wegman and niece Nguyen Louie and their children, Siena and Lazlo Wegman; his brother Ken Cantwell; sister-in-law, Alice Cantwell; his cousin Gary Rubloff and Gary’s wife Sara; his cousin Ina Rubloff; and his first wife Marion Griswold.

Bob was born March 2, 1945 to Rose Schulman and Thomas Olin Cantwell in Harvey, Illinois. After his father’s death in 1959, Bob and his mother lived for nearly a year with his cousins Gary and Ina and their parents in Peoria, Illinois, and then moved to Rogers Park in Chicago, where Bob completed high school. Bob graduated from Grinnell College in 1966.

At Grinnell College Bob met his first wife Marion Griswold; they married in 1966 and had daughters Matilda in 1970 and Madeline in 1976. Bob earned a Master of Arts in English from the University of Chicago in 1967 and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Iowa in 1971. He began his teaching career at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, where the family lived until Bob and Marion’s marriage ended in 1983.

In the summer of 1985, Bob met Lydia Wegman at the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife in Washington, DC. They both said that it was love at first sight. They lived together in Washington and Iowa, marrying in 1989, and moved to Chapel Hill, NC in 1990. Bob and Lydia enjoyed a long and joyful marriage, deeply involved in and supportive of each other’s families and careers. They were the loves of each other’s lives and one another' s most cherished companions, sharing an exceptionally rich community of family, dear friends, colleagues, and neighbors; a love of intellectual curiosity and conversation; travel, including to Maine, where Bob enjoyed working on their old house; and their Jewish identity.

Bob’s teaching career spanned 45 years and included appointments at the University of Iowa, Georgetown University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He spent the last 25 years of his career teaching American Studies at UNC Chapel Hill, where he was named the first Townsend Ludington Professor of American Studies in 2008. At UNC Bob developed many new courses including seminars focused on the 1950s, the city of Chicago, and Jewish literature. Bob received UNC’s Tanner Award for “excellence in inspirational and personal teaching of undergraduate students” in 2010.

Bob was a highly respected and beloved professor, distinguished by his intellectual capaciousness, generosity, warmth, and ability to draw students out. One former student remembered her experience in Bob’s class on the 1950s in her article “What a Humanities Professor Taught Me About Being Human” saying “what is inexorably etched in my mind is how the material came alive because Dr. Cantwell loved the subject so much. His enthusiasm was contagious, and the class was unmissable.” His colleague Glenn Hinson described Bob as a truly gifted thinker and writer, an “academic alchemist” who wove together “disparate elements of cultural theory, literature, ethnography, creating cohesive frameworks relevant across disciplines.” Bob retired from teaching in 2013.

Bob was a consummate writer and a voracious reader, always seeking to learn something new. His books include the ground-breaking Bluegrass Breakdown: The Making of the Old Southern Sound,the first major academic book on bluegrass music, for which he received the ASCAP Deems Taylor award in 1985; Ethnomimesis: Folklife and the Representation of Culture; When We Were Good; and The Poetics of Tenderness: On Falling in Love. Bob was known by friends, family, and colleagues for his inimitable, complex, and literary writing, reflecting his desire to understand and explore his subjects as thoroughly and deeply as possible. Yet in conversations with others, he was always interested in learning about their life experiences, listening intently to their stories and asking probing questions. One of Bob’s many gifts was drawing on his enormous body of knowledge to understand where people were coming from, while allowing them to remain the experts on their own lives and experience.

Bob loved to play and listen to music, particularly bluegrass and oldtime music. He said that at college he was regularly fined for playing his banjo too late into the night. He disparaged his own talents and musical abilities, though his listeners were always impressed. In addition to the banjo, he played guitar, mandolin, fiddle, and a little ragtime piano, all of which he learned by ear.

Bob was completely devoted to and utterly adored by his grandchildren and great-nephews and great-niece, with whom he engaged in deep and far-reaching conversations ranging from their reading, studies, and activities to the deepest philosophical and theological questions.

Bob’s distinctive and uproarious laugh will forever reverberate for those who knew him.

A memorial service for Bob will be held at 2 PM on October 11, 2026 at the Judea Reform Congregation in Durham, NC.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorial contributions be made to UNC Hospice. Checks may be made payable to UNC Hospice with “Robert Cantwell” in the memo line. Checks may be mailed to the address below.

UNC Hospice
c/o UNC Health Foundation    123 West Franklin Street, Suite 510         Chapel Hill, NC 27516