{"id":47773,"date":"2020-07-20T15:01:38","date_gmt":"2020-07-20T20:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=47773"},"modified":"2020-07-21T00:10:00","modified_gmt":"2020-07-21T05:10:00","slug":"rip-michael-silverstein-1945-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=47773","title":{"rendered":"RIP, Michael Silverstein (1945-2020)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Silverstein, a titan in the field of linguistic anthropology, passed away on Friday. UChicago News<\/a> has an obituary today.<\/p>\n

Prof. Michael Silverstein, a leading University of Chicago anthropologist who made groundbreaking contributions to linguistic anthropology and helped define the field of sociolinguistics, died July 17 in Chicago following a battle with brain cancer. He was 74.<\/p>\n

The Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology, Linguistics and Psychology, Silverstein was known for his highly influential research on language-in-use as a social and cultural practice and for his long-term fieldwork on Native language speakers of the Pacific Northwest and of Aboriginal Australia. Most recently, Silverstein examined the effects of globalization, nationalism and other social forces on local speech communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver a half-century at the University of Chicago, he produced a body of work that fundamentally changed the place of linguistics in the field, with foundational contributions to the understanding of language structure, sociolinguistics and semiotics, as well as the history of linguistics and anthropology,\u201d said Prof. Joe Masco, chair of the Department of Anthropology. \u201cHis erudition, sense of humor, love of scholarship, of teaching, of conversation and substantive debate is legendary and helped establish the intellectual strength of UChicago in all the many different fields of which he was part.\u201d
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Among the remembrances in the obituary is this one from his fellow linguistic anthropologist at the University of Chicago, Susan Gal:<\/p>\n

\u201cMichael was a man known for his enormous energy, erudition, precision and charm,\u201d said Susan Gal, the Mae and Sidney G. Metzl Distinguished Service Professor. \u201cLess recognized was his work behind the scenes to make knowledge happen by and for all of us. His conceptual approach radically redefined the place of language in social and cultural life; it was first of all brilliantly and excitingly his own.<\/p>\n

\u201cYet scholarship is indispensably a collaborative effort, a continuing, creative conversation among students and colleagues. His practice matched this teaching. That is why Michael was a devoted institution-builder, a tireless organizer of lasting infrastructures for critical, ethical discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael was my graduate adviser when I studied linguistic anthropology at the University of Chicago, and I can safely say he was the most brilliant person I've ever known. When I heard the news of his passing, it opened up a flood of memories from my grad school years and all I learned from Michael. It was his personal call (when I was doing research in Indonesia in 1996) that convinced me that Chicago was where I had<\/em> to go to grad school. Starting in the anthro program that fall, I found that Michael was enormously generous with his time from the start. When I asked if I could do a \"directed readings\" independent study with him (which took a bit of chutzpah as a first-year), he happily agreed. Our lively discussions in his office would often go on for two hours or more, as he'd disregard his constantly ringing phone.<\/p>\n

In my second year, I got to take part in a workshop he organized for ling-anth students known as \"the clubhouse,\" where we'd present our research in a convivial and supportive environment. And then there was his legendary \"Language in Culture\" lecture course, which I had heard about long before I got to Chicago, since my undergraduate adviser at Yale, Joseph Errington, was a student of Michael's back in the '70s. Generations of linguistic anthropologists benefited from his unmatched enthusiasm and tireless devotion to teaching and advising. In my files I find drafts of research proposals with Michael's voluminous, meticulous annotations, his standard practice with all of his students. I was one of the students who nominated him for the University of Chicago's Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching<\/a> in 2000, a recognition he richly deserved.<\/p>\n

Michael was sui generis<\/em> in so many ways. He didn't publish full-length monographs as was expected in the discipline, but instead packed books-worth of insights into densely worded articles that students would strive to decipher. He'd share offprints of his papers and lectures, some of which were never published but nonetheless circulated among students like precious amulets. One of my proudest moments as a young grad student was when I learned that in a 1997 public lecture at the Chicago Humanities Festival on \"Words at Work, Words at Play,\" he incorporated some of my research on Sundanese wordplay into his presentation.<\/p>\n

Even after I drifted away from academia, Michael often sent supportive notes as I navigated writing about language for a broader audience. I can still hear his quick-witted chuckling voice, always ready with some outrageously perfect pun. I'll miss that voice but will forever cherish the memory of it.<\/p>\n

Update<\/em>: Here is a video<\/a> put out last year by the American Philosophical Society in which Michael recounts how his interest in sociolinguistics and Native American languages came together as an undergraduate linguistics major at Harvard.<\/p>\n