[Linganth] The Michael Silverstein Memorial Scholarship Fund

[Constantine Nakassis]

An e-mail on behalf of Michael Silverstein's family.


> Dear Friends and Colleagues,
> We send profound thanks to everyone who has contributed to the Michael
> Silverstein Memorial Scholarship Fund, which is devoted to expanding
> access, as well as the intellectual diversity, of Anthropology at the
> University of Chicago. As Michael's wife and colleague of many years, we
> know he would have greatly appreciated this outpouring of support. Over a
> half century of teaching and scholarship, Michael animated a vision of
> scholarship as a serious act of  intellectual commitment, and of
> citizenship.
>
> In this challenging year of loss and pandemic, every act of building
> community, as well as every attention to the complexity of social order and
> the possibilities for collectivity, is essential – constituting fundamental
> acts of world-making. Michael was committed to building communities, to
> ensuring that the professions of which he was so much a part, would be
> strong and healthy and survive long beyond him.  He was so very proud of
> his students and so eager to welcome them as colleagues into a shared
> professional world.



> We are very grateful to each of you who have taken time to think about and
> support future anthropology students at the U of C, enabling an expansion
> of the field as well as securing the potential of scholarship to see the
> problems, recognize the beauty and mobilize the understanding to engage a
> complex and changing world.
> As so many of you know, Michael cared deeply not only about the future of
> the scholarship but also about collective conditions, illustrated by some
> of his thoughts taken from his communications with colleagues, students and
> those who stumbled across his work:
>
> "Scholarly work can illuminate issues that are very real and salient to
> laypersons in a cultural milieu. That, it seems to me, is important: that
> we are scientist-citizens in the image of Franz Boas, with a role to play
> in our own society by virtue of the systematic study we do of particular
> phenomena surrounding us, about which we can attempt to inform our fellow
> citizens."
>  -
> "You are summoned as a citizen scientist to say, "Where do I stand on
> using my knowledge to, as it were, maybe illuminate people, maybe reveal
> what's going on?" ... That's the least we can do. There is a wonderful
> scene in the 1939 Hollywood movie The Wizard of Oz ... in which Toto, the
> little dog of Dorothy, pulls back a curtain, when you see the mountebank,
> the snake oil salesman, working the levers of a machine that's running this
> thing which purports to be Oz, and we can certainly try to be that little
> Toto."
>


> If you have yet to give, we humbly ask that you consider a donation in
> Michael's name (
> https://giving.uchicago.edu/site/Donation2?idb=1275503813&1838.donation=form1&df_id=1838&mfc_pref=T&1838_donation=form1&set.Designee=2641)to
> continue the scholarship funds for graduate students in the U of C
> Anthropology Department, Michael's intellectual home for 50 years, and to
> continue to build the profession that he held so dear.
>
> As soon as in-person gatherings are possible, please know that we will be
> in touch with details about a public memorial, one that will allow a
> collective remembrance and recognition of Michael’s life and work.
>
> For now, please accept our wishes for a healthy and happy holiday season,
> and a rejuvenating new year.
> Sincerely,
> Mara Tapp and Joseph Masco
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