I have had many and quite diverse connections to the Center over the years, so I hope I will be excused for the egocentricity of emphasizing the memories that have come to me directly through my own eyes and relationships.…

My year at CASBS (in 2003-2004) was transformational and deeply meaningful for me. It changed my scholarly identity, making my historical research more thoughtful, my statistical research more rigorous. My writing improved and I found myself truly humbled by the…

I first heard of a renowned “Center” set in the hills above Stanford while still an undergraduate at Columbia University, sometime in 1984, as a place with no application process. There, it was said, one could pursue research in interdisciplinary…

My most vivid memories of the years I was fortunate enough to have a fellowship at CASBS in the late 70s, mid-80s and 2004-5 are organized around the flow of each day, so perfectly attuned to that incomparably restful and…

I would like at least that my own intellectual activity should not make things worse or more dangerous, and, preferably, that it would make things by a tiny margin a little bit better, a little bit clearer, a little bit…

I was a fellow at CASBS in 1989-90. At that time, one could not apply to be a fellow and when the letter inviting me to come arrived, I was somewhat perplexed, having never heard of the Center, and almost…

My plans for my (1996-97) year at the Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) were firm: I was definitely doing nothing—other than a final edit of a book and tidying up a textbook manuscript. I had…

I was first a CASBS fellow in 2005-06. As a Stanford faculty member since 1991, I had long viewed the Center as a kind of academic nirvana that I was determined to eventually inhabit for a year. From the valley…

CASBS helped shape my research and career in so many ways, that I cannot imagine what would have happened had I not spent my early years as an Assistant Professor at CASBS (1994-1995). The resulting volume, Cetacean Societies, was the…

In the mid-1990s, then Director Neil Smelser made me an offer I couldn’t refuse – the opportunity to work as his colleague on three-year project funded by the Hewlett Foundation, which would culminate in my organizing a year of collective…