During my year at the Center I read a great deal in a variety of fields, outside my training as a physicist or my work in city planning. Moreover, I learned a lot from the anthropologists and historians of science,…
Blog Archives
Firebombing at CASBS
Melvin Small, Class of 1969-70
I would like to add my ruminations to Amelie Oksenberg Rorty’s and Kamala Visweswaran’s informative and sensitive comments about the 1970 fire at the Center. I have written a few paragraphs about it in books on the anti-Vietnam War movement…
CASBS Recollection
Robert H. Bates, Class of 1993-94 & 1985-86
I have been fortunate to have spent two years at the Center. For reasons of space, I write only about the second. Had the closet in my office been large enough, I would have stayed for a third year, but…
The Stream of Consciousness and Beyond in Ulysses
Julia Rothenberg (Class of 2013-14) on Erwin R. Steinberg (Class of 1970-71)
Erwin R. Steinberg (Professor of English and Rhetoric, Carnegie Mellon University 1946-2007) was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences for 1970-71. He used the year to develop his Ph.D. dissertation into a book,…
CASBS: Effects on Me and Observations for the Future Kenneth J. Arrow, Class of 1956-57
(Talk given at the 60th Anniversary Event on Nov 9, 2014) Basic inspiration: a unity of the social sciences with psychology; hence the term, “behavioral” – very much inspired by Talcott Parsons. Motivations: a mixture of psychoanalysis, rational behavior. Social…
Serendipity at the Center
Robert 0. Keohane, Class of 2004-05, 1987-88 & 1977-78
I was a “double recidivist” at the Center. I couldn’t stay away. After an initial year (1977-78) while I was on the Stanford faculty, I was there again in 1987-88 (from Harvard) and in 2004-05 (from Duke). The first time…
On Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, Class of 1955-56
Albert Rothenberg M.D, Class of 2013-14 & 1986-87
One of the earliest women invited to spend a year (1956) at CASBS, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann was a pioneering psychoanalyst who spent the major portion of her professional life treating psychotic patients. Born in Germany, she escaped the Hitler Anschluss in…
Serendipity, CASBS, and Me
Charles S. Carver, Class of 2014-15
Of the many illustrious documents produced during Fellowships at CASBS, very few are better known among psychologists than the slim, engaging volume that was published in 1960 by George Miller, Eugene Galanter, and Karl Pribram. The book was called Plans…
The Leaders We Need
Michael Maccoby , Class of 1968-69
I arrived late to the Center, because I was active in Senator Eugene McCarthy’s campaign for the Democratic nomination. Once settled in, I worked at writing Social Character in a Mexican Village, sending drafts to the senior author, Erich Fromm.…
Fire on the Hill: The Making of a Modern Classic
Kamala Visweswaran (Class of 2014-15) on M.N. Srinivas, Class of 1964-65 & 1969-70
I came to know of MN Srinivas as a UC Berkeley student in a course on “Social Stratification in India” taught by Anthropology Professor Gerald Berreman (a CASBS Fellow in 1976). Best known for his concept of “sanskritization” which explained…