Denis C. Gainty

Denis was born in Saranac Lake on Aug. 31, 1970, to Clement Joseph Gainty and Mary Kate Gainty. His father was on the founding staff of North Country Community College, where he held the position of Associate Dean of Students. After spending his early years in Saranac Lake, Denis grew up in Western and Central Massachusetts. As a boy, he excelled at his studies and music, which became a lifelong passion.

He attended college at Williams, where he majored in Geology and met his future wife. After graduating from Williams in 1992, he taught English in Japan, the country which would become the focus of his scholarship. He earned his M.A. in International Education from Columbia University’s Teacher’s College; and he worked as a teacher and administrator for the Morristown Beard School in New Jersey and the Northfield Mt. Hermon School in Massachusetts.

Returning to graduate school, Denis entered the doctoral program in East Asian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, which awarded him a Ph.D. in 2007. He joined the faculty at the Department of History at Georgia State University that year. His research explored Japanese identity; his book, Martial Arts and the Body Politic in Meiji Japan, was published by Routledge Press in 2013, earning high praise from reviewers. Denis was past-president and secretary of the Southeast World History Association and was working, as a second book project, on a history of bluegrass music in Japan..

Denis was a talented musician who played a variety of instruments including mandolin, guitar, fretless electric bass, and fiddle. In 2009, he began jamming with members of a Decatur group, the Porch Bottom Boys. He soon joined the band and focused on mandolin, with Denis describing his mandolin style as reflecting his “eclectic musical influences and misspent youth.” Denis was also frequently recruited to perform with several other Atlanta area bands.

Denis’s work and family brought him to many different places in the world, New York City, St Petersburg, Russia, Osaka, Japan, Denville, New Jersey, Northfield, Massachusetts, and Haverford, Pennsylvania, before settling in Decatur and finding work at Georgia State.

He left behind two children: daughter Eliza Catherine, born in 2005 and his son William Clement, born in 2008.

Whether jointly presenting with Eliza a lecture on World War II at Renfroe Middle School or joyfully encouraging Clem’s burgeoning soccer talent, Denis found his greatest happiness in his love for his daughter and son.

Denis is also survived by his mother, Mary Kate Gainty, his older brother, Chris, and his younger sister, Caitjan.