Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus
“Theory is a tool lightly held in the hand,” you have said.
In your ethnographic studies of Sumbawa, Indonesia, and equally back home in the classroom, you have shown us how theoretical tools can be deftly applied to draw out the nuanced implications of fieldwork. Your work on religion, law and ritual has been an important reference point for generations of scholars.
You are also a famously inspiring teacher and mentor. Many students credit you as the first person to have seen their potential, or just to have understood them for who they were. Equally renowned as a raconteur, you are recalled as having just the right quote or aphorism for any situation. One alumnus remembers you starting a course by asking each student to savor a piece of bread sweetened with honey, so that “learning may be sweet.”
“I never forgot it,” he writes. “And, professor, it has been.”
Even your personal pursuits are more like avocations. From fly-tying and casting to sailing, ceramics, baking, Judaic studies, and the game of Go, you have immersed yourself in each activity with focus, passion and erudition. We are grateful that you have inspired so many students to do the same.
I hereby declare you Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, entitled to all the rights, honors and privileges appertaining thereto.
June 8, 2025