1924-2023
Joseph Berger, professor emeritus of sociology at Stanford University and senior fellow (Emeritus) at the Hoover Institution, died in his sleep December 24, 2023, about three months short of his 100th birthday. His theoretical and experimental work on status and interaction has influenced generations of scholars.
Joe received the American Sociological Association (ASA) Section on Social Psychology’s Cooley-Mead Award (1991) and the ASA W.E.B. Du Bois Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award (2007). His alma mater, Brooklyn College, awarded him their Lifetime Achievement Award (2009).
Joe was a staunch friend, an exacting mentor, a careful and prolific scholar, and a devoted family man. In 1949, he married Shirley Fuchs, a fellow student at Brooklyn College. They had two children, Adam and Rachel. That marriage ended in 1965. The following year he married Margaret Alice Smith— though everyone called her “Theory”—forming an intimate union that lasted until her death on Christmas Day, 2022. Their son, Gideon, cared for Joe in his final months. In addition to his love for his children, Joe delighted in Rachel’s sons Isiah and Jonah, and Gideon’s son Paul.
Following commencement at Brooklyn College (1949), Joe entered the doctoral program in social relations at Harvard University. He studied with sociologists and psychologists of his home department, as well as with philosophers, logicians, and mathematicians, prompting Gordon Allport, the graduate director, to ask him “What department are you in, Mr. Berger?” Joe was also research assistant to Talcott Parsons and his doctoral supervisor was Robert Freed Bales.
Joe’s first faculty position (1954-1959) was at Dartmouth College, where he became close with young mathematicians John G. Kemeny and J. Laurie Snell. Berger and Snell published a Markov model of mobility. When Patrick Suppes, a dean at Stanford University, mentioned to Snell that he hoped to enlarge the sociology department, Snell recommended Joe. The department looked him over and offered Joe a position, which he accepted in 1959. Within the next two years, several other new hires joined Joe at Stanford. This group, which considered themselves a new wave of scholars, included Sanford M. Dornbusch (chair), Bo Anderson, Santo F. Camilleri, Bernard P. Cohen, W. Richard Scott, and Morris Zelditch, Jr. In addition, Elizabeth G. Cohen, also a sociologist, joined the Graduate School of Education because at that time the university did not allow spouses in the same department.
At Stanford Joe introduced a graduate seminar in theory construction (Dartmouth had declined him permission for what they considered a radical new course). Cohen and Zelditch later taught versions of the course, so all graduate students in the department for several decades engaged with these ideas.
The best-known works from the research program are theories of status and expectation state processes. Berger, Cohen, and Zelditch authored the majority of early papers on the subject. A former student, Hamit Fisek, worked closely with Joe until his death in 2020. Elizabeth G. Cohen and Rachel Lotan developed techniques used in more than a dozen countries to reduce harmful status inequalities in classrooms. Others developed and applied “proliferant” theories in business, medicine, race and ethnic inequality, gender, model building, and other venues. These works reflect Joe’s views on the place of abstract theory and relations of theory and evidence, ideas that engaged him throughout his life.
Joe served as chair of Stanford’s Sociology Department for 12 years, from 1976-83 and 1985-89. As a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Berger was in contact with many social scientists, several of whom consequently joined the department. He retired from these positions in 1994 at the age of 70, but worked until the end of his life, publishing two chapters on status and research programs in 2022.
Joseph Berger’s dedication to explicit theory and cumulative knowledge inspires scholars studying social structures and interaction. In his high school yearbook, Joe said he hoped to become “instructor in the science of sociology.” He did—and accomplished more than he could have foreseen in 1942.
Murray Webster Jr., University of North Carolina-Charlotte
1945-2024
Dr. Adele E. Clarke, an internationally known sociologist and women’s health scholar, died on January 19, 2024, in San Francisco. She was 78.
Throughout her long, refreshingly nonlinear career, Clarke made substantial contributions to sociology, the history of medicine, qualitative methodologies, science and technology studies (STS), women’s health, and reproductive studies. She had a significant impact on, and built bridges connecting, all of these areas and was recognized for her creative interdisciplinarity.
Adele Elizabeth Clarke was born on April 1, 1945, in Brooklyn, NY, to Agatha Adele Howry and Norman Clarke. She received a bachelor’s degree from Barnard College in 1966 and a master’s degree from NYU in 1970, both in sociology. Clarke earned her doctorate in sociology in 1985 from the University of California-San Francisco (UCSF). From 1987 to 1989, she held a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University. She was a faculty member in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences in the School of Nursing at UCSF from 1985 until her retirement in 2013, holding a variety of roles including director of the doctoral program and department chair. Until very recently—and despite retirement—she was quite active in publishing, mentoring students and colleagues, and giving workshops on situational analysis.
Clarke’s 1985 doctoral thesis on controversy and the reproductive sciences won the 1986 American Sociological Association Medical Sociology Section’s Roberta G. Simmons Outstanding Dissertation Award and launched a productive scholarly focus on reproduction and reproductive politics. Her book Disciplining Reproduction: Modernity, American Life Sciences, and the ‘Problem of Sex’ (University of California Press 1998) won the 1999 Eileen Basker Memorial Prize from the Society for Medical Anthropology and the 2000 Ludwik Fleck Prize from the Society for Social Studies of Science. Clarke also wrote about sterilization abuse, abortion, cervical cancer, reproductive technologies, kinship, and more. With colleagues at UCSF, Clarke innovated the sociology of women’s health, offering the first curriculum in the United States focused on social, cultural, and historical dimensions of women’s health.
Clarke was a brilliant qualitative methodologist. Trained in Chicago School sociology, grounded theory and social worlds/arenas analysis, she developed the method of situational analysis. Her book Situational Analysis: Grounded Theory after the Postmodern Turn (SAGE 2005) was awarded the 2006 Charles Horton Cooley Book Award from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction. Additional works on situational analysis included collaborations with former students and foreign translations.
Clarke was a key figure in science and technology studies, an interdisciplinary field investigating social, cultural, and historical dimensions of scientific and biomedical knowledge and practice. She coedited The Right Tools for the Job: At Work in Twentieth Century Life Sciences (Princeton University Press 2016) with Joan Fujimura and Biomedicalization: Technoscience, Health, and Illness in the U.S. (Duke University Press 2010). with UCSF alumni Laura Mamo, Jennifer Ruth Fosket, Jennifer R. Fishman, and Janet K. Shim. She brought science and technology studies into the doctoral sociology curriculum at UCSF, attracting students to the department, and she also engaged in significant field-building work through conferences, journals, workshops, special issues, and more, including international collaborations. In 2012, Clarke received the distinguished John Desmond Bernal Prize from the Society for Social Studies of Science.
Adele Clarke was a beloved and generous mentor to generations of sociologists, nurses, and others, many of whom went on to distinguished academic careers of their own. In 2002, she was honored by the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction with the Feminist Mentor Award (now called the Helena Lopata Mentor Excellence Award) and was recognized as Faculty Mentor of the Year at UCSF. In 2015, the American Sociological Association’s Medical Sociology Section presented her with the Leo G. Reeder Award for distinguished service to the field. Additional honors included a Woman of Distinction award from the UCSF Center for Gender Equality, the Helen Nahm Research Lecture Award from the UCSF School of Nursing (2012), and the UCSF 150th Anniversary Alumni Excellence Award (2015).
Clarke is survived by her husband, Allan Regenstreif, a psychoanalyst; several cousins; and the many students who adored her and who carry forward her legacy.
A fund in Clarke’s name has been established at Our Bodies Ourselves Today.
A more complete obituary is available here.
Monica J. Casper, San Diego State University, and Sara Shostak, Brandeis University
1939-2023
Richard Oliver Hope passed away on December 1, 2023. Born on April 1, 1939, in Atlanta, GA, Hope graduated from Pearl High School in Nashville, TN, and received his BA from Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1961. Hope went on to receive his MA and his PhD in sociology from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University in 1964 and 1969, respectively.
Upon graduation, Hope was hired as an assistant professor of sociology at Brooklyn College, where he worked until 1972. He also became a research associate at the Metropolitan Applied Research Center in New York. From 1972 to 1974, Hope served as the first director of research and evaluation for the Defense Race Relations Institute (now DEOMI), where he was responsible for the creation, administration, and development of human relations research for early curriculum materials, and analyses of worldwide intergroup relations in the U.S. military.
In 1974, Hope was hired as full professor and chair of sociology, as well as director of the National Science Foundation Project at Morgan State University. In 1982, he became chair of sociology and the coordinator of the Liberal Arts Workshop for the Lilly Foundation in Indiana. At that time, he created the Center for International Studies and served as its first director. In 1988, Hope accepted a position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he served as executive director of the Quality Education Project in conjunction with the Carnegie Corporation.
In 1990, Hope was hired at Princeton University as full professor of sociology and senior vice president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation (WWNFF). While at the WWNFF, Hope developed the Public Policy Partnership Program in South Africa and the Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship Program. He retired from the WWNFF in 2010. Hope also directed the Public Policy and International Affairs Fellowships, the Mellon-Mays Undergraduate Fellows Dissertation and Travel/Research Grants, and the Career Enhancement Fellowship. Hope was then named president of the 1971 DEOMI Foundation, Inc.
Hope served on several public policy boards. He was a member of the board of directors of the National Urban League and Princeton University’s Center on African American Studies, elected to the Council on Foreign Relations, and served as an advisory panel member of the Brookings Institution.
Hope published numerous articles and books, including Racial Strife in the United States Military: Toward the Elimination of Discrimination (Preager 1979); African-Americans and the Doctoral Experience: Implications for Policy (Teachers College 1991), with Charles Vert Willie and Michael K. Grady; and Educating a New Majority: Transforming America’s Educational System for Diversity (Jossey-Bass 19915) with Laura I. Rendon.
Hope was the recipient for many awards for his work, including the Mellon-Mays Achievement Award for Leadership, the Gandhi-King-Ikeda International Peace Award, and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award for Leadership in the Advancement of Minorities in International and Diplomatic Service. He was also a proud member of Alpha Phi Alpha and Sigma Pi Phi fraternities.
Hope lived in Chicago with his wife, Alice Anderson, with whom he raised two children, Leah and Richard, Jr.
In collaboration with Alice Hope, this obituary was adapted from an interview with the HistoryMakers.
1942-2024
Orlando Rodriguez, Cuban-born professor emeritus of sociology and influential peace activist, died in White Plains, NY, on January 4, 2024, after a brief struggle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 81 years old. He is survived by his wife, Phyllis Schafer Rodriguez; his daughter, Julia E. Rodriguez, and son-in-law, Charles B. Forcey; daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Soudant; and three grandchildren. He was predeceased by his son, Gregory E. Rodriguez, who died in the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York City.
Rodriguez was born in Havana, Cuba, on February 22, 1942, the only child of Marta Iglesias, a seamstress, and Jesus Rodriguez, a cracker salesman. After migrating to New York in 1955, and attending high school in Brooklyn, Rodriguez earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the City College of New York in 1965 and earned a PhD in sociology from Columbia University in 1974.
Early in his career, Rodriguez taught at Brooklyn College and then was a researcher at the Vera Institute of Justice. Most of his academic career was spent at Fordham University in the Bronx, where he was known as a devoted teacher, mentor, and institution-builder. First hired as a senior research associate at Fordham’s Hispanic Research Center (HRC) in 1987, Rodriguez led studies on mental health in Latino communities. From 1990 to 1997, he was director of the HRC and taught in Fordham’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology, where he collaborated on new programs in peace and justice studies and community service until his retirement in 2020.
Rodriguez’s early scholarly interests in crime, justice, and mental health informed his later public work, some of which came to national attention. Four days after September 11, 2001, still reeling from their son’s death in the World Trade Center attacks, Dr. and Mrs. Rodriguez penned an open letter, “Not in Our Son’s Name,” which called on then-President George W. Bush to resist calls for military retaliation. The letter concluded with a plea: “Our son died a victim of an inhuman ideology. Our actions should not serve the same purpose. Let us grieve. Let us reflect and pray. Let us think about a rational response that brings real peace and justice to our world. But let us not as a nation add to the inhumanity of our times.”
The Rodriguez letter, as it circulated rapidly over email, struck a chord, connecting the couple to other victims’ family members and peace activists worldwide, contributing to the 2002 founding of September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, an organization calling for nonviolent solutions to conflict. Documentary filmmaker Gayla Jamison followed the Rodriguez family for eight years and 2015 released the film In Our Son’s Name, capturing the story of their response to their son’s death. It also portrayed Rodriguez’s work in prisons promoting restorative justice and his testimony (with 12 other family members of victims) in federal court on behalf of accused terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, who faced the death penalty in 2006.
At Fordham, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Rodriguez characteristically drew the community into a collective process to grieve and make sense of the terrorist attacks. With Kerry R. Sweet, an NYPD police captain and attorney, he created and co-taught a course called Terrorism and Society, which was subject of an article in the New York Times on April 24, 2002 , “Teaching Class on Terrorism After Losing Son To It” (login required). He was instrumental in creating a minor concentration in peace and justice studies and the criminology course Harm and Justice, Crime and Punishment.
Rodriguez also taught the sociology of religion at Green Haven and Sing Sing correctional facilities for years as a volunteer for Rising Hope, a college-level certificate program. Prison work was deeply meaningful to Rodriguez, who explained that “by teaching in a prison…I’m making a statement to myself about what I feel toward the men who killed Greg, that I wish I could teach them. I wish I could have conversations with them. But I can’t, so this becomes a kind of substitute to lighten the load.”
Rodriguez was an active member of Memorial United Methodist Church in White Plains, NY, and Braver Angels, an organization that promotes civil conversations across political differences. A private burial was held on January 13 at White Plains Rural Cemetery. A public memorial service will be held in the spring of 2024. Donations in his memory may be made to Rising Hope or September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. A longer obituary may be read here.
Phyllis Rodriguez, Orlando’s spouse
1978-2023
Assistant Professor Xiaohong Xu, sociologist of history, politics, culture, political economy, and China, passed away on December 12, 2023, at Angela Hospice near his home in Ann Arbor, MI, after a long struggle with cancer. He was 45 years old.
Xiaohong Xu’s brilliance, originality, and adventurous intellectual spirit shined through his work. With erudition and curiosity that were only matched by his humility and kindness, Xu dedicated his life to developing an innovative cultural framework that examined how revolutionary vanguards arise and create historical change. His award-winning, pathbreaking work about the 20th century Chinese Revolution has been published on some of the discipline’s most central stages. Xu’s still unpublished work goes as far as arguing that the Chinese Cultural Revolution created the conditions for the country’s subsequent turns to neoliberalism and authoritarianism.
His writing was bold and courageous, as was his approach to public intellectual life. He appeared in numerous panels on contemporary China, wrote about current issues in public forums, and marched with prodemocracy protestors in Hong Kong during the turbulent spring and summer of 2019. A community builder, Xu cofounded THiS (Theory, History, and Society)—a platform promoting scholarly conversations across the Pacific. His gentle spirit touched every person who met him. His ambitious research program will have a lasting impact on future scholars of culture, revolution, comparative-historical sociology, and social theory.
Xu was born in a rural village near the city of Quzhou in the Zhejiang province of southeastern China. His father was a farmer, and his mother was a village tailor. He left the village at age twelve for a middle school in his county’s main town, sleeping in a room shared with 20 other boys. He visited home every week or two, bringing back to school only rice, steamed buns, and pickles as food. He recalled absolutely no self-pity but carefree joy in exploring the world around him and expanding his knowledge.
Attending the best high school in Quzhou was Xu’s first city experience. At eighteen, he went to the capital to study chemistry at Peking University—China’s flagship higher-education institution—where he was drawn to the social sciences. Xu immersed himself in the thriving avant-garde cultural scene of Beijing in that period, editing for the journal China Scholarship and participating in critical theory circles on and off campus. He came to the U.S. in 2003 to pursue a graduate degree at the University of Notre Dame, then transferred to Yale University to earn his PhD in sociology in 2014. Upon graduation, Xu moved back to Asia as an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore and subsequently to Lingnan University in Hong Kong. He returned to the U.S. to join the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2019, as an assistant professor in a joint position in the Department of Sociology and the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, where he served as associate director for the last three months of his life.
Xu will be remembered for his infinite generosity and dedication to critical inquiry and to nurturing the next generation of scholars. His career and his life were kindled by a boundless passion for knowledge and ideas, and his bonhomie and far-reaching impact are evident in the hundreds of letters and messages sent to him from across the sociological discipline and beyond during his last weeks of life.
Professor Xiaohong Xu is survived by his wife, Lang Chen; nine-year-old daughter, Aubree Xu; mother, Yanxiang Fu; father, Huomu Xu; and two brothers, Liming Xu and Xiaobin Xu. He will be forever missed by them and by numerous loving friends, colleagues, and students.
Roi Livne and Lang Chen, University of Michigan
