I am delighted CASBS is celebrating its 60th anniversary. Memories flood my mind.
I was at CASBS from December 1960 to May 1961. At the age of 30, I was perhaps the youngest in the 1960-61 Class. I cherish those six months as one of the happiest periods in my life. For me, CASBS, with small, elegant offices, perched on a hill, and surrounded by beautiful trees and plants, is like an ashram in the Himalayas inhabited in ancient times by Indian sages (rishis) meditating in search of the ultimate reality.
The class of 1960-61 included a galaxy of anthropologists and sociologists: Edward M. Bruner, Norman Dennis, E. Adamson Hoebel, Edmund R. Leach, Philip Selznick, Julian H. Steward, Jan Szczepanski, Leslie A. White, and Nur Yalman. It was perhaps the first and only year in CASBS’s history when so many anthropologists and sociologists from around the world congregated. I felt privileged I interacted with them. We organized a number of seminars, where anthropologists and sociologists from Stanford and Berkeley also joined. The theme of structuralism dominated the discussions. We even jointly wrote a letter to Claude Levi Strauss, and he clarified a number of points in his structuralism. The presence of so many anthropologists and sociologists at CASBS also attracted leading anthropologists and sociologists from elsewhere in USA to visit CASBS: Fred Egan, Robert Merton, Talcot Parsons, and Milton Singer.
I worked in the tranquility of CASBS on the analysis of my field data, helped efficiently by the technical and secretarial staff. This work later resulted in three books—which are in the Ralph Tyler collection—and many papers.
I visited CASBS again for a few hours in December 1985, on my way from Santa Cruz to Berkeley, to offer obeisance to this temple of learning. Preston Cutler was still around, and it was a great pleasure meeting this wonderful human being again.
I convey my best wishes to CASBS for bright future in its service of learning.
A.M. Shah, Class of 1960-61
Retired Professor of Sociology
University of Delhi, India
Now in Vadodara, India.
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