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Below, you can find statements from Columbia University about Chuck's
passing.
With warm remembrances,
Ann Mische
Dear members of the Columbia sociology community:
We are all saddened by the passing of Charles Tilly, who died yesterday.
I've attached the statement that has just been released by the public
affairs office of the university, and also the statement that was just
released by President Bollinger.
Sincerely,
Thomas DiPrete, Chair Department of Sociology
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The Columbia University community mourns the loss of one of its beloved
members, Charles Tilly, the Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professor of Social
Science, who passed away on April 29 after a long battle with cancer. He
was 78.
Tilly, who had a joint appointment with the University's Departments of
Sociology and Political Science, is widely considered the leading scholar
of his generation on contentious politics and its relationship with
military, economic, urban and demographic social change.
President of the Social Sciences Research Council Craig Calhoun called
Tilly "one of the most distinguished of all contemporary social
scientists," adding: "He is the most influential analyst of social
movements and contentious politics, a path-breaker in the historical
sociology of the state, a pivotal theorist of social inequality."
"His intellectual range and level of productivity are virtually unrivaled
in the social sciences," said Columbia sociology Professor and Chair
Thomas DiPrete. Adam Ashforth, professor of anthropology and political
science at Northwestern University, described Tilly as "the founding
father of twenty-first century sociology."
During the course of his 50-year career, Tilly's academic expertise
covered urbanization, industrialization, collective action and state-
making, and his most recent work explored social relations, identity and
culture. His primary interest concerned Europe from 1500 to the present,
but his work extended to North America and other parts of the world as
well.
Tilly is well known for his generosity to students. Many recall thanking
Tilly for his mentorship, only to receive the response: "Don't thank me,
just do the same for your students."
One important training ground he offered to students was a succession of
informal seminars, co-launched with his former wife Louise in their living
room 40 years ago when he was a younger professor at the University of
Michigan. Once titled the "Think, Then Drink" workshop, the name changed
to the "Workshop on Contentious Politics" and was held regularly at
Columbia for more than a decade. Many students continued to participate
well past graduation and into their own professorship tenures.
"Much as his own scholarship transcended traditional disciplinary
boundaries, these vibrant discussions brought a diverse array of
professors and students together in an ongoing conversation that
represented the best of historical social science," said former student
and close friend Wayne Te Brake, now a professor of history at Purchase
College. Participants enjoyed Tilly's "egalitarian rules for presentation,
critique and intervention," he added.
Tilly was born May 27, 1929, in Lombard, Ill., and studied at Harvard
University, earning the bachelor's degree magna cum laude in 1950 and the
Ph.D. in sociology in 1958. He also studied at Balliol College, Oxford,
and the Catholic University of Angers, France, and served in the U.S. Navy
during the Korean War. Before arriving at Columbia in 1996, Tilly taught
at the University of Delaware, Harvard, the University of Toronto, the
University of Michigan and The New School for Social Research. In
addition, he held several short-term research and teaching appointments at
universities throughout Europe and North America during the course of his
career.
Tilly was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the
Sociological Research Association and the Ordre des Palmes Academiques.
In addition to his theoretical and substantive interests, Tilly wrote
extensively on the subject of research methodology. His writings touched
on epistemology, the nature of causality, process analysis, the use of
narrative as a method for historical explanation, mechanism- based
explanations, contextual analysis, political ethnography, and quantitative
methods in historical analysis, among many topics.
During his lifetime Tilly received several prominent awards, including:
the Common Wealth Award in sociology (1982); the Amalfi Prize for
Sociology and Social Sciences (1994); the Eastern Sociological Society's
Merit Award for Distinguished Scholarship (1996); the American
Sociological Association's Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award
(2005); the International Political Science Association's Karl Deutsch
Award in Comparative Politics (2006); the Phi Beta Kappa Sidney Hook
Memorial Award (2006); and the Social Science Research Council's Albert O.
Hirschman Award (2008).
In addition, he was awarded honorary doctorates in social sciences from
Erasmus University, Rotterdam (1983); the Institut d'Etudes Politiques,
University of Paris (1993); the University of Toronto (1995); the
University of Strasbourg (1996); the University of Geneva (1999); the
University of Crete (2002); the University of Quebec at
Montreal (2004); and the University of Michigan (2007).
In 2001, Columbia's sociology graduate students named Tilly the Professor
of the Year.
He authored, co-authored, edited or co-edited 51 published books and
monographs and over 600 scholarly articles. His major works include _The
Vendee: A Sociological Analysis of the Counter-Revolution of 1793_ (1964);
_Sociology Meets History_ (1981); _Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge
Comparisons_ (1984); _The Contentious French_ (1983); _European
Revolutions 1492-1992_ (1993); _Cities and the Rise of States in Europe:
A.D. 1000 to 1800_ (1994); _Popular Contention in Great Britain,
1758-1834_ (1995); _Durable Inequality_ (1998); _Transforming
Post-Communist Political Economies_ (1998); _Dynamics of Contention_
(2001); _Soial Movements 1768-2004_ (2004); _Trust and Rule_ (2005);
_Why?_(2006); and _Democracy_ (2007).
"Professor Tilly will be remembered as an extraordinarily generous and
innovative scholar and teacher by a vast network of colleagues,
students and friends around the country and across the globe," said Te
Brake.
Tilly is survived by his former wife (and sometimes collaborator),
Louise; his brothers, Richard and Stephen, and sister Carolyn; his
children, Chris, Kit, Laura and Sarah; their spouses Marie, Steve,
Derek, and David; his grandchildren, Amanda, Charlotte, Chris, Abby,
Ben, Jon and Becky; and his great-grandchildren, Jamie and Julian.
President Bollinger's Statement on the Passing of Professor Charles
Tilly
Columbia lost one of its finest citizens when Professor Charles
Tilly passed away April 29. Most recently the Joseph L. Buttenwieser
Professor of Social Science, serving the departments of Political
Science and Sociology, he was a scholar of boundless energy and
intellect. Few could, or will ever, match his scholarly output and
lasting impact. His 50 years of teaching, writing and intellectual
inspiration will be missed here at Columbia and everywhere people seek
to understand how history and societies move forward.
The extraordinary half-century career of Charles Tilly continuously
demonstrated scholarship that transcended disciplinary boundaries. It
seemed that he could write, interpret, and explain virtually anything
to curious minds. With more than 600 articles and 51 books and
monographs bearing his name, Charles Tilly literally wrote the book on
the contentious dynamics and the ethnographic foundations of political
history.
Though he received an extraordinary number of special awards,
scholarly inductions and honorary degrees during his long and
productive career, we will remember that, since 1996, he was a
distinguished member of the Columbia community. His students, fellow
faculty members and friends will all remember someone not only who
reached and remained at the pinnacle of his field but also a warm and
valued colleague who never stopped asking profound questions.
Lee C. Bollinger
President