ROHO is pleased to announce the selection of
Professor Laura Nader as the recipient of the 2013 Class of 1931 Annual Oral History Interview on University History. Nader has been a part of the Department of Anthropology since 1960 when she was the first woman to receive a tenure-track position in the department. She is a beloved teacher and recipient of Berkeley's Distinguished Teaching Award; thousands of students have taken her popular course on "Controlling Processes" and remark that its emphasis on critical thinking changed their lives.
Nader earned her PhD at Harvard, under the direction of Clyde Kluckhohn. Her own scholarship focuses on a wide range of topics including: comparative ethnography; the role of law and culture in conflict resolution; and health, science, and energy policy in the United States. She was written over 250 books, co-edited volumes, and articles. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has served on the Social Science Research Council, The National Academy of Science Commission of Nuclear and Alternate Energy Systems, and the Editorial Committee of Law and Society Review -to name just a few of her many professional engagements. She has been a visiting professor in the schools of law at Stanford, Yale, and Harvard. The interview will focus on: Nader's background in Connecticut, the child of Lebanese immigrants; her scholarship, its reception and influence; the development in the field of anthropology, and Nader's place in it, and observations on the history of UC Berkeley since 1960. The interviews will be videotaped, transcribed, and made available on ROHO's website at the end of this year.
Established in 1954, the Regional Oral History Office (ROHO) of The Bancroft Library is dedicated to recording the history of the University of California. Totaling hundreds of individual interviews, the ROHO series on university history includes oral histories with Berkeley Chancellors and student activists, Nobel laureates and distinguished alumni.
In 1981, the Class of 1931 established a small endowment to support a portion of ROHO’s university history interviews. Today, ROHO opens up nominations for the annual “Class of 1931 Oral History”—a once-a-year interview conducted by ROHO historians with an administrator, faculty member, or staff person closely associated with the university.
ROHO staff will select the next “Class of 1931” interviewee in January 2014 and conduct the interview in the following spring and summer. Selection criteria include: willingness of the nominee to participate, ROHO interviewer expertise, uniqueness and rarity of the nominee’s story and level of contribution to campus life, and the generation of the nominee.
Please submit your nomination with this online form.
