As a former editor of the Berkeley Journal of Sociology, which Michael Burawoy encouraged me to join, it gives me great pleasure to remember him here in these pages. Michael was a huge influence in my life, in ways that only became clear to me as I got older. Firstly, I would never have become a sociologist if it hadn’t been for a serendipitous encounter in my final year of my BA in International Relations at the University of Minnesota. My advisor for my honors thesis was (and still is) a sociologist, and he invited me to give a 10-minute presentation on my ethnographic research into the Spanish Greens at a Sociology conference on campus. I showed up and gave my talk (probably my first academic talk ever), and as I was walking out, a British-sounding man came up to me and gave me his card. All I remember of what he said was, “If you have any interest in doing a PhD at Berkeley, give me a call.” I later mentioned the encounter to my advisor, who told me Professor Burawoy had been the conference keynote speaker and was a very highly regarded sociologist. To be perfectly honest, at that point, I had very little idea of what a sociologist was, but I put the card away. One degree and a baby later, and with more encouragement from my advisor, I dug the card out and called the number, with some trepidation. Michael immediately remembered me (I later discovered he had a mind like a steel trap, and it wasn’t necessarily because I was so memorable, though it would be nice to think so). He gave me a lot of helpful advice and encouraged me to apply. Eventually, with scholarships in hand, I decided to go to Berkeley, and I arrived, baby and husband in tow, immediately feeling very different from the much younger members of my cohort. From the very beginning, Michael had my back. I couldn’t afford a laptop computer, so he lent me his until I could get one. When I was strapped for cash to the extent that it prevented me from taking advantage of important career opportunities, such as travelling to a conference in Europe, he would find me funding or an extra job. He understood that my childcare duties meant I couldn’t attend seminar talks and many other department activities, and distanced me from my cohort. We talked about the radical “turning into a pumpkin” switch I made each day at 3 p.m., and he encouraged me to use the walk up the hill to my house to transition from “school brain” to “mothering brain”. Most importantly, I felt he saw me and heard me, and understood the particular challenges I faced as a mother, an older student, and someone not raised in the US. 

In an academic environment where social movement scholarship was completely dominated by the US civil rights movement, he understood that the dynamics, assumptions, and theories that drove and were derived from that foundational movement were very different from the autonomous European movements I was familiar with. Instead of trying to assimilate me to the US point of view, he set me on a two-year path of intensively reading all the works of Alain Touraine, through which I discovered the work of Alberto Melucci, who, even more than Touraine, influenced me profoundly. He encouraged me to find my own voice, to trust my own analysis, but also to be aware that taking the path less travelled meant increased possibility of rejection, especially from US journals. When my first article was rejected, he chalked it up to gatekeeping and encouraged me to stick to my guns rather than try to appease editors and reviewers. Authenticity over strategy was how I would describe his mentoring—a harder row to hoe, but ultimately more rewarding. Michael’s support over the years has been unfailing. I rarely troubled him, but if I needed him, he was always there, a pattern that began in grad school and never stopped, even 25 years later!  I know that he had many other students and colleagues who undoubtedly feel the same. 

I learned an enormous amount from Michael. During grad school, I was fortunate to be taken on as one of the GSIs for his famous year-long Sociological Theory class. As someone who had taken exactly one sociology class as an undergraduate (Environmental Sociology), I was learning along with the students from his brilliant lectures, but mostly from Michael-led intensive weekly theory sessions with the other GSIs, followed by dinner at a different local Bay Area restaurant each week (Michael’s treat). Best of all, though, were my one-on-one theory sessions with Michael. Those sessions, where we would lose ourselves in different paragraphs of Marx and Gramsci, are my most treasured memories with Michael. 

(Speaking of Gramsci: Michael also had a formidable character. The twinkly, gentle professor that so many will recall was not the only side of him. I once had to miss his first Gramsci seminar of the semester (for a very good reason, I swear), and he was absolutely furious with me! He soon got over it, thankfully. It took me a bit longer. He was slightly unreasonable when it came to Gramsci, but we all have our quirks). 

When I was in the field for my dissertation research, we only communicated by email, but his feedback and advice was always forthright. His support for participatory ethnography was absolute—and that support freed me to focus on the analysis and the insights coming from the fieldwork without second guessing myself or adopting any defensive postures about method. I later realized how rare that is in the academy, how right I was to choose Berkeley, and how blessed I was to have Michael as a mentor. 

Because of the time difference, I might send him emails at 2 a.m. his time, and I was always startled when he would shoot an email right back. This was when I realized that he never seemed to sleep, and that he lived and breathed sociology 24/7. In his commitment and passion for sociology, I could never match him, nor have I ever tried. Some things are unattainable for mere mortals. But in his approach to theory and to lecturing, I hope that I have absorbed something. Michael understood (like many great teachers) that lecturing is a performance, and that engaging and stimulating the audience is the key to success. He was an absolute master at that. So much so that when my brother (an ecologist) came to visit, I took him along to one of Michael’s lectures. I am sure I am not the only person who did that. “Bloody brilliant!” and “Bob’s your uncle!” are two phrases none of his students will ever forget. Whether they admitted it or not, I am willing to bet not a single one didn’t secretly hope to be graced with a “bloody brilliant!”. His parlor trick of learning all the students’ names was another of his strategies, and he roped the GSIs in to help him during our weekly sessions: “The young woman with the brown hair who sits next to the guy named Brian in the front row—what’s her name again?”. He would eventually be able to call on all the students by name (these were classes of some 200 students). I learned so much about theory and teaching during that year that, as the joke goes, I should have been paying him, not the other way around. 

Michael’s commitment to public sociology became clear to me after I left Berkeley. When I co-founded Interface Journal, he asked me to write a piece about it for Global Dialogue, and he was genuinely interested in the mission and approach of the journal, especially as he had a similar set of aspirations for sociological exchanges and interventions. He understood that sociology is useless if it doesn’t try to change the world for the better—otherwise, what is the point? His love of Gramsci wasn’t just academic! As President of the ASA (American Sociological Association) and the ISA (International Sociological Association) he continued to spread the message that sociology can matter, but only if it manages to break free of the academic silo. There are those who will try to put sociology back in its academic box (especially when it is politically expedient to do so), but in a world where sociology departments are disappearing or under attack, I am convinced that its continued relevance depends on the opposite: continual engagement with and intervention in the world, putting academic excellence and critical insights at the service of society and (emancipatory and democratic) politics. 

In the past year, Michael was vocal in his support for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, just as he supported workers and students, and many oppressed groups over the course of his lifetime. Teaching on the picket line was his solution to meeting students’ needs and supporting strikers. Michael was instrumental in mobilizing for the resolution that was ultimately passed by the ASA to take a public stand for academic freedom and for justice in Palestine, for which I am profoundly grateful. In his statement of support for the resolution he called for sociologists to “stand up for the moral principles that brought so many of us to sociology” and his final posthumous publication develops that reflection further-a fitting final word from someone who was on the right side of history. Michael argued in relation to the Israel/Palestine conflict that “21st century sociology does what it has to do—offer a sense of possibilities out of a bleak situation”. He argued that the “ attack on the university—and you can be sure sociology if it is doing its job will be an early target—should be a reason itself to defend peaceful protest”. How right he was.

I miss knowing Michael is there, and will always be so grateful for our chance meeting and his support over the past 25+ years, but mostly I feel his loss for the wider world: as academic freedom is being demolished across Europe and the US, and as fundamental democratic institutions and freedoms are being dismantled by the Trump administration, the stakes have never been higher. Michael’s voice, commitment, and leadership will be hugely missed.