Tambiah, Prominent Anthropologist, Remembered as Loving Scholar

By Courtesy of Susan Farley

Anthropology professor emeritus Stanley J. Tambiah, described by colleagues as one of the giants of 20th century anthropology and who was known for his studies of Buddhism and South Asia, passed away on Jan. 19 after a long illness, three days after his 85th birthday.

Called “Tambi” by those who knew him well, Tambiah was a native of Sri Lanka and first joined the Harvard faculty in 1976 after teaching at the University of Chicago and the University of Cambridge. He taught at Harvard for 35 years as one of the first full professors of South Asian descent, according to neurology professor S. Allen Counter, director of The Harvard Foundation.

“He was a great Thai studies and Buddhism expert who was known for meticulously detailed and conceptually rich ethnographic studies of religious rituals and cultural traditions and the way that they came together in on the ground practices,” said Arthur M. Kleinman, an anthropology professor who was both a student and colleague of Tambiah. “What distinguished him was in addition to being a superb field researcher, he was also the author of bold theoretical statements.”

Colleagues remember Tambiah as a humble yet “lion-hearted” man with a brilliant mind, noteworthy for his love for life and a “smile that lit up the world,” said Charles S. Hallisey, a close friend and former teaching colleague of Tambiah’s.

“Everything that was beautiful about the world, he loved,” Hallisey said.

In the latter part of his career, Tambiah focused his work on the study of political violence, a topic that “affected him greatly” as a native of Sri Lanka, Kleinman said.

“It wasn’t just an academic topic to him, there was an imperative to it,” said Hallisey, a lecturer at Harvard Divinity School. “He was alert to the way scholarship could contribute to the betterment of the world.”

Kleinman said that Tambiah left the world of academia a legacy of his views on studying anthropology.

“His point was that what distinguished anthropology was an initial engagement with what was culturally specific and locally important, and as a last step, a translation from that into what was comparative and universal,” Kleinman said.

Counter echoed the sentiment that Tambiah meant a great deal to the discipline.

“He is a great loss because he’s a terrific scholar,” Counter said, adding that he always “felt like a student” in Tambiah’s presence.

John D. Rogers, a close friend of Tambiah’s, said that although the scholar was a prominent figure in the academic community, he will be remembered for his kindness toward junior academics.

“He was always someone who, in academia, treated people as individuals and didn’t make assumptions based on their positions within the academic hierarchy,” Rogers said. “He was a very kind and sensitive man.”

Beyond his accomplishments in anthropology, Tambiah also brought a perspective and mindset that contributed to the “internationalizing of Harvard” that made the institution a “world university,” Hallisey said.

Kleinman, who is also director of the Harvard Asia Center, said that Tambiah is honored with a lecture series on Thai studies hosted by the center.

Tambiah is survived by his two sons, grandchildren, a younger sister, and a former wife.

—Staff writer Dev A. Patel can be reached at dev.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @dev_a_patel.

—Staff writer Steven R. Watros can be reached at steven.watros@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveWatros.