Princeton University Honors Faculty Members Receiving Emeritus Status June 2008
The biographical sketches were written by colleagues in the epartments of those honore.
Contents Faculty Members Receiving Emeritus Status Robert Choate Darnton (2007) Page 1 Peter Raymon Grant Page 5 John Joseph Hopfiel Page 8 William Louis Howarth Page 10 Hisashi Kobayashi Page 14 Joseph John Kohn Page 18 Ralph Lerner Page 21 Eugene Perry Link Jr. Page 24 Guust Nolet Page 27 Giacinto Scoles Page 29 John Suppe (2007) Page 33 Abraham Labe Uovitch Page 36 Bastiaan Cornelius van Fraassen Page 40
Robert Choate Darnton Robert Darnton spent his whole acaemic teaching career at Princeton University, having joine the faculty in 1968 until retiring in 2007 an becoming the irector of the University Library at Harvar University. For four active ecaes, Bob serve the history epartment an the University as a great teacher an a great humanist. Born in New York on May 10, 1939, Bob was a chil, an an orphan, of the Secon Worl War. His father, a war corresponent for the New York Times, was kille in action. But the iea of being a reporter an a writer was a natural career for Bob an inee his brother John woul also make his name as a writer for the Times. After stuying at Phillips Acaemy, an grauating from Harvar in 1960, he crosse the Atlantic to Oxfor University as a Rhoes Scholar, where he complete a D.Phil. in history. But his calling was journalism; Bob returne to New York to join the staff of the Times. Place on the crime beat of the metro section to cover robberies an murers, he learne the art of piecing together a narrative from clues, an telling a goo tale uner a ealine. In the en, hiing thick history books in the fols of smutty magazines so that his colleagues wouln t tease him for being pointy-heae, Bob got tire of the beat an yearne to get back to historical research. But he always believe that a goo historian shoul also be a goo raconteur an be accessible to non-professional auiences. As it turns out, the worl of journalism, print culture, an the meia what woul later be seen as critical components of a public sphere were more than just vocations. They were also subjects of historical stuy for Bob, an as the years unfole he woul examine the role of the press an print cultures, an eventually the history of communications in a variety of settings an times, from 18th-century Switzerlan to 20th-century Inia. 1
While Bob acquire great range an became one of the worl s leaing scholars of a topic that was of growing interest as emocratic movements took fire in Latin America an in Europe (where Bob is a veritable public intellectual in a way that the more professionalize Anglo-Atlantic acaemies on t quite foster), his scholarly research was anchore in 18th-century France, where the historiography was emerging out of many years of ominance by Marxist an materialist historians. Bob woul emerge as one of the great figures in what is now a mainstream fiel, cultural history. It began with his first book on mesmerism on the eve of the French Revolution, publishe in 1968, after several years in Harvar s Society of Fellows, an as he began his long career at Princeton. But it was really with his secon book, The Business of the Enlightenment (1979), a history of the technological an social processes that yiele to the Encyclopéie, that Bob s name became a househol wor to historians. With this book, Bob mae his mark on the fiel of the social history of ieas, moving away from the stuy of intellectuals an their proucts, to the history of the prouction of ieas, en route to the stuy of the consumption an meaning of ieas more generally. Whereas once French historians woul write total histories of places an societies with material founations, Bob excavate the total history of the cultures an ieas that kept societies together. But Bob s work was never restricte to the social glue. He was also intereste in the ieas an symbols that broke societies up an the most famous of all being the French Revolution, which set in motion new unerstanings of equality an freeom. The shift to the social history of ieas meant revisiting some classical ebates about the relationship between the Enlightenment an the Revolution. What Bob challenge was the automatic association if not causal immeiacy between new high cultural notions an the overthrow of an ancien régime an the making of the republic. There were a number of steps in between. How i new concepts reverberate among lower circles of reaers an makers of public opinion? On the eve of the 2
Revolution, what was on peoples mins? While remaining concerne with the prouction of ieas, Bob became eeply influence by anthropology, especially Cliffor Geertz, with whom he collaborate for many years of teaching uner the aegis of the Program in European Cultural Stuies. This yiele to a highly influential series of essays publishe together uner the title of The Great Cat Massacre (1984), translate into no less than 17 languages, which plumbe the rituals an symbols of Parisian popular sectors an behavior, from the slaughter of cats, to the houning of witches, to male sexual braggaocio. What emerge was a worl turning upsie own, of ol verities an authorities being questione, of texts circulating more broaly as part of a gutter press among French urbanites, which prove equally if not more unsettling than the polite salons that we often presume were the incubators of revolution. It was this move that le Bob to avance through a series of important books, from The Literary Unergroun of the Ol Regime (1982) to The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections on Cultural History (1989), an eventually to his two-volume masterpiece The Forbien Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France an The Corpus of Clanestine Literature in France (1995), which cast a sharp beam on a worl of reaers (not so much the writers) of salacious novels, pornographic political allegories, an all sorts of polemicists an pamphleteers with affinities to the Enlightenment but whose importance to the cultural shifts of the 18th century ha too often been overlooke. If the quality of Bob s work mae him a famous historian worlwie, the sheer volume is no less impressive. Bob publishe 12 authore books, an another ozen eite volumes or critical eitions. His articles fill pages an pages of his long curriculum vitae. An there are many awars, incluing the Guggenheim Fellowship an the MacArthur Prize Fellowship, an istinguishe scholarships in Britain, France, Germany, an beyon. He has receive eight honorary octorates an serve as past-presient of the American Historical Association. 3
The interest in books an meia, an of the role of the public sphere more generally, carrie Bob far an wie. He spent a year in Berlin at the Institute for Avance Stuy in 1989 90, which coincie with the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a saga he capture in ways reminiscent of the reporter of his Times ays, but now informe by his thinking about public opinion an the complex ways in which societies overthrow illegitimate political systems, in Berlin Journal (1991). He also embarke on a major international history of censorship. It is fitting that a great historian of publishing, books, an their reaers shoul eventually take an interest in one of the institutions responsible for meiating between the prouction an consumption of ieas: libraries. Bob ha a lifelong commitment to the health of libraries, from Firestone to the New York Public Library system. His new job is not quite a new career, but an extension of an ol passion. We wish him well. What is more, we know that his commitment to the worl of libraries an the artifacts they preserve an circulate is a personal investment in a public goo for us all to enjoy for generations to come. 4