In Memoriam: Michael Burawoy

 

Our beloved colleague, Michael Burawoy, was killed the evening of February 3, 2025 when he was hit by a car while walking near his home in Oakland. Michael was a pillar of our community for decades, an intellectual giant, a dedicated mentor and educator, and a dear friend. Indeed, he played a central role in defining who we are as an intellectual and human community. 

 

The Department will host a Memorial Gathering on the Berkeley Campus for Professor Michael Burawoy on Saturday, August 23, 2025 at Alumni House. Please save the date and be on the lookout for further details in the coming months. We are also planning a webcast of the event. Please provide your email address in this google form if you would like further information about attending. 

 

In lieu of flowers, we ask for contributions to the Burawoy Chair's Endowment for Sociology, which supports the graduate and undergraduate students to whom Michael was always dedicated. 

 

 

 

 

Michael Burawoy, a world-renowned sociologist and professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, died after being struck by a vehicle on Monday, February 3. He was 77.

Burawoy joined the Berkeley Sociology Department as an Assistant Professor in 1976, after earning his PhD in sociology at the University of Chicago (1976) under the supervision of Professor William Julius Wilson. Burawoy’s scholarship, graduate mentorship, undergraduate teaching, and professional leadership profoundly shaped the Berkeley sociology department, the discipline, the profession, the university, and sociological practice and publics around the globe. He retired in 2023 after 47 years of service to the university, but he continued to mentor graduate students and remained very active in the discipline.

For nearly five decades, Professor Burawoy was a leading intellectual influence in the
discipline. He published 12 books and well over 120 papers, essays, and book chapters. Many of Burawoy’s published works, including Manufacturing Consent (1979), The Politics of Production (1985), and The Extended Case Method (2009), were translated into multiple languages. He is famous for his myriad generative contributions to sociological theory, sociological methods, analyses of labor processes in industrial worksites, analyses of the university as a place of work, and especially in more recent years, for his work to advance public sociology as a distinctive, legitimate mode of doing sociology in and through engagement with non-academic practitioners and collaborators, always with an orientation to the public good. His contributions to the profession have been recognized by numerous awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Marxist Section of the American Sociological Association (2020) as well as the W.E.B. DuBois Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award (2024).

Burawoy was a transformative leader on campus and in the profession. He served as Sociology Department Chair (1996-1998, 2000-2002) as well as co-Chair and Secretary of the Berkeley Faculty Association (2015-2021). He was elected President of the American Sociological Association (2003-2004) as well as President of the International Sociological Association (2010-2014). Across these various constituencies and communities, Michael Burawoy’s leadership and service was characterized by intellectual vision, political commitment to raise voices of those at “the bottom” or the margins, dedication to advance the public good, and integrity, generosity, compassion, and good humor.

As President of American Sociological Association, Burawoy developed and advanced his call for “public sociology” a call that energized more diverse and younger generations of sociologists to practice sociology through proactive engagement with concerns and questions that emanate from communities beyond academia. As President of the International Sociological Association, Burawoy made sustained and effective efforts to build infrastructure for sustained scholarly exchange among and between scholars of the “global south” and the “global north.” His contributions as ISA president made a huge impact on American sociology by increasing openness and attention to global issues and exerting counter-pressure on some of the inward focused, provincializing tendencies of the discipline in the U.S. He was founding editor of a new ISA journal called Global Dialogue (2010-2017) that featured the work and ideas of sociologists from around the world, translated into multiple languages to reduce barriers to scholarly exchange, and to remove excuses for failure by U.S. based scholars to engage with scholars from the global south.

Burawoy’s teaching and advising were legendary, as were his commitments to the continual improvement of pedagogy and to sustaining accessible, high-quality public higher education. He won numerous accolades for his teaching and mentorship at the graduate and undergraduate levels over his career, including the UC Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award (1979), the American Sociological Association Distinguished Teaching Award (2003), and the Faculty Award for Outstanding Mentorship of GSIs (2007). His impact on students was profound. He supervised no fewer than 80 dissertations. And for four decades, he taught the department’s required undergraduate theory sequence and was renowned for learning the name of each and every undergraduate student he taught by the second week of class, even in large lectures with more than 200 students.

Upon his retirement, Professor Burawoy was awarded the Berkeley Citation (2023), one of the campus’ top honors, reserved for “distinguished individuals or organizations…whose contributions to UC Berkeley go beyond the call of duty and whose achievements exceed the standards of excellence in their fields.”
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like many others I am reeling from the news of the death of my beloved mentor and friend Michael Burawoy, UC Berkeley Sociology professor emeritus. This is a tremendous loss for me personally, to our Social Sciences community, UC Berkeley, and to sociologists worldwide, from England to South Africa, and from India to Brazil.

Michael dedicated 47 years of his life to Berkeley, contributing immeasurably to the discipline, transforming the fields of labor, ethnography and theory. He was past president of the American Sociological Association and the International Sociological Association. His greatest legacy, though, went far beyond the many books and articles he published or prestigious awards he received -- it was in the people whose lives he changed. He was an extraordinary teacher, who mentored and inspired thousands of students, changing their lives with his fierce intellect and kindness.

He mentored me when I first arrived at Berkeley as an assistant professor. I learned to love Berkeley through his eyes. I learned what it meant to teach, to mentor, to do research seriously, and above all, what devotion to one’s calling looked like. I am grateful that in my present position as dean, I will always have his voice in my ear, reminding me that it is my duty to think above all about the needs of those most disadvantaged, the powerless, those who had to fight to get here.

I will miss him always as a beloved friend, mentor and comrade. An unimaginable loss. 

 

Manuel Castells, FBA.

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I am disappointed and saddened to hear about the death of my former sociology professor, Michael Burawoy. Prof. Burawoy was a giant in the sociology world and was well loved and respected. I was a student of his during the pandemic, so I didn’t have the pleasure of meeting with him in person each week. However, he still made quite an impact over Zoom. He loved to hear my reading voice and would ask me to read during EVERY class (which my classmates loved because it meant they didn’t have to do it). He was a sweet and affable guy and he will be missed by so many.

RIP Professor Burawoy. Thank you for helping me to see the value in my voice.

- Carmen Drake, Class of 2021

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Summary of Dr. Michael Burawoy’s Lecture on the Future of Public Education (February 23, 2017, University of Montana) Dr. Michael Burawoy delivered a thought-provoking lecture on the crisis of public universities in the United States, particularly focusing on the impact of marketization and privatization on higher education. Drawing from his extensive background in sociology, he outlined the structural transformations that have reshaped universities, emphasizing the growing disconnect between faculty, administration, and students.

Key Themes: 1. The Marketization of Higher Education • Universities are increasingly being treated as business enterprises rather than public institutions. • Public funding for universities has declined, forcing them to rely on tuition increases, private donations, and corporate partnerships. • Knowledge itself is becoming a commodity, limiting accessibility to education.

2. Administrative Expansion and Faculty Disempowerment • A five-fold increase in senior administrators at universities like UC Berkeley has shifted priorities away from education and research toward revenue generation. • Faculty are becoming more marginalized in decision-making, while adjunct and contingent faculty bear an increasing teaching load with lower job security.

3. The Role of Students in a Changing University Model • Students are paying more for less, with rising tuition and fewer resources available to them. • The shift toward out-of-state and international students as revenue sources has created political and ethical dilemmas. • Many students leave universities with significant debt and uncertain job prospects.

4. Four Crises Facing Public Universities • Budgetary Crisis: Reduced state funding, leading to higher tuition and reliance on private donations. • Governance Crisis: Administrators prioritize financial survival over academic values. • Identity Crisis: Faculty and students struggle to define the purpose of the university in a corporatized environment. • Legitimation Crisis: The public’s trust in universities is eroding as education becomes more expensive and less accessible.

5. The Need for Public Engagement and Collective Action • Universities should be accountable to the public, not just to administrators or corporate interests. • Faculty and students must reclaim control over university governance to ensure that education remains a public good. • Strengthening cross-disciplinary and community engagement is essential to resisting further privatization. Conclusion: Dr. Burawoy argued that the future of public universities depends on critical engagement, activism, and rethinking higher education’s purpose. He encouraged students, faculty, and administrators to work together to challenge the neoliberal model and push for a more democratic and accessible university system.

By SteVen Ray

Lecture_T.pdf

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I worked with Michael these past 15yrs as a staff member. 
It's pretty obvious the impact he had in the academic world 
but bringing him closer to home the impact he had on making 
our work place a civil and sane one was important too.  It was clear 
to me that he really cared deeply about people no matter what 
roles we're in. He respected us as colleagues with a contribution 
to make.

I will be continually amazed at the memory he had. On one visit to my 
office he saw a picture of my cat. He then went away on sabbatical 
for a year. Upon his return I saw him in the hallway and he asked me 
how Toby was! He actually remembered his name! I then shared with him 
a picture of 2 kittens we added to the family (they look nothing alike) and 
he said "Awww, they're twins!" Next day he brought them each a fishing pole 
and some little felt mice.

He asked about my daughter every single time. The week before he passed 
I told him that she was taking her first Sociology course and he immediately 
replied to tell me that if she ever needed a tutor or simply someone to 
explain anything to her as she moved along in the class to give him a call.

I have a weird pass time of watching UK politics. Every time something 
cooky came up I always asked Michael if he'd be willing to explain 
what just happened. He always graciously and patiently explained things 
as he saw them. The last few times (if he was on campus) and something 
in the UK was a blaze, he made his way down to my office to explain 
things before I even asked him!

All this to say, I knew how busy he was with his academic colleagues, his 
hundreds of undergrads, his many grad advisees, BUT he always took the 
time with staff as well. I swear, he pulled extra time out of his pocket. He was never 
in a rush and gave so generously of his time to us.

I will always be grateful to Michael for being part of the reason why Berkeley Sociology 
is a great place to work but more importantly allowing us to make our contributions 
to something big and important as we assist our "bloody brilliant" students and academic 
colleagues.

Oh and "Bob is your uncle!"  :-)

Rebecca Chavez
UCB Sociology

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In Memory of Michael Burawoy: A Brilliant Mind, A Fierce Advocate, A Dear Friend  
 

Hello dear community. Let me begin by apologizing for joining late. I was
moderating a session in Haifa, Israel, for a book release about Gaza.I deeply
wished to be with you from the very beginning, to share our pain together and to
not be alone in our mourning. But as I made my way here, I could almost hear
Michael’s voice reminding me: “Areej, your work and commitment to with your
community and your people is important—especially now.”
 

Since October 7th, Palestinians in Israel have had their voices increasingly silenced.
Michael understood the weight of these moments and the urgency of engagement.
Even after his passing, his voice still resonates with me, guiding me—urging me to
think, to write, to act, to ask what must be done. His presence, his insights, and his
unwavering commitment continue to shape the way I navigate these difficult times.
 

It is incredibly difficult to put into words the magnitude of loss I feel with Michael
Burawoy’s passing. He was not only a towering figure in sociology but also a daily
source of support, wisdom, and solidarity. Over the past two years, our
conversations—sometimes brief check-ins, other times long and winding
discussions. His generosity was boundless, his intellect razor-sharp, and his
commitment to justice unwavering.  
 

As a young sociologist, encountering his work on public sociology provided me
with the tools to envision what an engaged and committed sociology could truly
be. But what made his scholarship transformative was not just his theorization—it
was how he lived it. He did not see theory as detached from practice; rather, he
embodied the belief that those who theorize must also carry the practice. His
unwavering commitment to public sociology was not merely intellectual but deeply
lived, shaping both the field and the possibilities of sociological engagement.
Michael was politically engaged in the world he studied, something that not all
scholars can say about themselves.
 

I will never forget his characteristic modesty or the conversations we
shared—exchanges that profoundly shaped how I think about scholarship,
activism, and responsibility. Meeting him, after years of learning from his work,
reinforced how theory gains its deepest meaning when it is carried into action. His
solidarity with Palestine was not a passing stance but a deeply rooted commitment,
one that started to permeate his scholarship and his presence—especially since
October 7th. His work and his life continue to shape who I am today, reminding me that the power of sociology lies in its ability not just to interpret the world but to engage with it and shape it.
 

It feels deeply symbolic that Michael’s last published article was “Why and How
Should Sociologists Speak Out on Palestine?” - a testament to his lifelong
dedication to justice. It stands as a testament to his relentless pursuit of justice.
That was Michael—never retreating from difficult conversations, always pushing us
to confront uncomfortable truths, and forever standing on the side of the
oppressed and the colonized.

Michael was not just a scholar; he was a builder of relationships, a weaver of
community. He brought us together, creating a family bound by justice, care, and a
shared commitment to a decolonized world and decolonized sociology and lastly a
decolonized Palestine. With him we shine together—our voices stronger, our
resolve deeper, our sense of belonging to one another more profound. He
nurtured a space where we could challenge, support, and grow with one another,
where intellectual rigor and political commitment were inseparable from love and
solidarity. The family he built among us is his legacy, and we will carry it forward.  
 

When we became close, I remember the exact moment he looked at me and said "I'm Jewish Areej. I hope you won't hate me." His words caught me off guard, but I immediately felt tears in my eyes.  "I will love you more, Michael," I told him. "It is a testimony for me that, as a Jew, you continue the struggle for justice." I knew
what it meant for him to do so and how deeply he believed in a true decolonial
present and future. His family “left” Germany “one minute” before the Holocaust,
he would tell me. His world and opportunities were shaped by that devastating
history of the genocide of European Jewry. I think this history, even if tacitly and
not explicitly, undergirded Michael’s dedication to liberation and justice for all, and
his view that academics cannot insulate themselves from the world around them.
 

Michael, I know how important it was for you that public sociologists speak up for
Palestine, especially in the middle of Genocide. This is your contribution to us—to
continue the struggle for justice, to advance the anti-colonial fight for the world
and for Palestine, and to insist on a future where we all, Palestinians and Jewish
Israelis alike, can live in dignity and freedom in a decolonized world.  Michael
wrote in his last article, “For a sociologist it is not enough to declare whose
side you are on and then move on; as sociologists we embed our political
commitments within a theoretical framework. In a period of
“postcoloniality” the systematic and transparent repression of Palestinians
by the Israeli state makes it unique, compelling us to re-examine our own past, giving new salience to “settler colonialism,” as the debris of decaying Empires.” 

Just two days before he was killed, I wrote to Michael, asking when we would speak
again. His response: "Always free for you! Any day, anytime. What do you make of
what’s going on in the world?" That was Michael—always ready to listen, to
discuss, to debate, to challenge and to support. And now, the world and my world
feels profoundly emptier without him. Our department at Berkeley, the field of
sociology, and the world writ large will have to grapple with this profound loss. It
still feels inconvincible and impossible that Michael has left us. It will be our work,
then, to keep Michael’s legacy alive, to share stories and teach his work and, most
importantly, to model ourselves after his beautiful character.

Michael, I will miss you more than words can express. But I promise you, we will
carry forward the struggle, and we will keep your spirit alive in the fight for justice.
 
Rest in power, my dear friend and teacher

Areej Sabbagh Khoury

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I took Michael's undergraduate class in 1987-1988.  I don't remember all that much about my time as a sociology major but I keenly remember that class. It may sound like a cliche but it really influenced my whole life since then.  The class was organized around the division of labor and I've always fought against the system's push for me to focus on just one area.  I remain an anti-capitalist not only based on that class, but in part.

When I arrived at UCB, I was a liberal Democrat.  Through that class and other experiences, my thinking evolved to seeing the system as a class system vs. through liberal eyes.  I think of myself as a small m Marxist.  I continue on as a radical activist, my ongoing project being Slingshot Collective which I joined in 1988 and have worked on since then.  This also informs my legal practice (day job) where I practice non-profit corporate law for clients helping the marginalized and disadvantaged.  

Michael was an inspiring professor and thinker.  Thanks to him and to UCB and the sociology dept.  

Jesse D. Palmer

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Dear Berkeley colleagues,
My deepest sympathy on Michael's passing from his alma mater. For me, a former factory worker myself, his writings were enormously enlightening. And I had occasion to consult with him several times about faculty governance and other issues here at U of C. We will miss him very much.
Sadly,
Bob Kendrick

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Michael was the best teacher I ever had, and at Berkeley I had some amazingly good teachers. He taught me to be bold and political in my arguments, base my knowledge on primary sources, and apply my research and learning for social justice. I was not supervised by Michael, but he always gave me encouragement. As a footballer, I enthusiastically joined what was a short-lived departmental football team organized by Michael. I am sad to hear about what happened to him, but he will live on as a huge reservoir of inspiration for the rest of my life.

 

Colin Samson, PhD 1990

Department of Sociology

University of Essex

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RIP to one of the greats. Michael Burawoy. You changed my time at UC Berkeley. After transferring there, I was struck by how it seemed that professors there cared far less about students than the professors in community college had. It seemed as if showing up to teach class was an inconvenience for some of them, and I’m sure it was if research was their sole desire.

Not for Burawoy, as we affectionately called him. I had him three semesters in a row and was lucky enough to be a part of his twenty person seminar my final semester. He showed up every day full of a zest and passion that was contagious. Not only did he break down complex theories into digestible pieces but he made us laugh during every lecture. Imagine a lecture hall full of four hundred students laughing together as an eccentric man with a thick British accent described the nuances of Marxism. I honestly didn’t think any part of me would love learning about sociological theory but every part of me did by the end of my time with Burawoy.

The world of academia and sociology and social justice will dearly, dearly miss you. Your presence alone made Berkeley worth coming to for each and every one of us. I think about the ripple effect of your passion for critical thinking, for truly understanding sociological theory, and how that now lives on in each of us. How important such thinking is in these times ahead. How important it is to examine the cost of capitalism especially, something you drilled into us. I hope to take from your death the reminder that we each have the responsibility to show up with zest and passion somewhere in our life. To show up with grit, to show up with fight.

Thanks for changing my life (and thousands of others).

-Adrienne Lee, UC Berkeley Class of 2016, BA in Sociology

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Feb 8, 2025
Mara Loveman

I had the extraordinary good fortune to be Michael’s colleague and friend in his home department of Sociology at UC Berkeley.   

Like so many others, my whole being is still struggling to absorb the reality that we are now in the world that we are in, without Michael Burawoy here with us.  Waking up, things look bleak; and the Grief is just enormous, and it weighs, heavily. 

In this context of shared grieving and commemorating, today, still only a few days after his death, I find that the part of michael’s contribution to sociology and to the world that I am most compelled to speak about, is his teaching.

Michael loved teaching with all of his heart. And he taught with all of his might.

He often said teaching was a privilege.  He engaged in teaching as a responsibility, or even an existential mission.

Teaching was integral to who Michael was as a scholar, a writer, a speaker, an activist, a human being. I think teaching is what made Michael the sociologist he was. I also think Michael’s sociology deeply shaped the kind of teacher he was.

Michael never let us forget that Teaching is at once a social relation between human beings, and a labor relation, between worker and employer, especially in the context of the neoliberal university. Michael worked and played with this tension in different ways at different moments.  Whenever there was a labor action here, he refused the Question:  “do I cancel class or do I cross the picket line?”  Michael never cancelled class.  He taught his classes on the picket line. 

I think the way Michael engaged with students embodied his determination to defend the classroom as a space where human relationships can prevail.  One small example of this, which is well known here but maybe not so well known in the wider sociology world: For decades, Michael taught our required undergraduate theory courses. These took place in lecture halls will 200 students per class. (Berkeley is a huge university and undergraduate students too often learn to expect anonymity as a default). By the end of the second week of class, Michael could call on every last student in the lecture hall by name. 
 
Michael’s teaching made individual students feel seen and valued as individuals, who had something unique and important to contribute to building a better world. He also created conditions for them to build genuine intellectual and human communities. His PhD students will tell you all sorts of ways that he did this. He did this for his colleagues and for staff members in the department too, making each of us feel special, and fostering our community through a sense of shared purpose in the radical pedagogical mission of Berkeley as a public university in the state of California.  

Another small example: For many, many years, Michael gave the closing speech at our department’s graduation ceremony. Sociology at Berkeley graduates a few hundred students per year, and sometimes as many as 50% of these students are first in their families to graduate from university.

Michael would pause at one point in his remarks and ask all the students who were the first from their families to graduate from university to stand up. Then he would ask them to turn around and face their families and friends in the packed auditorium. From the perspective of us faculty members sitting in a row up on the stage, in our ridiculous robes, we got to see the faces of the parents and grandparents and friends of the standing graduates beaming with pride as they looked into the faces of the new graduates.

These were the moments I felt most proud to be a professor of sociology, a teacher, a part of the collective political project to defend and sustain the public university as a space and set of relations and conditions where it is still possible to nurture the cultivation of good sense, to help sow seeds for a more socially just world.  Michael was a fierce defender of the public university and its potential to create conditions for more radical social change.

One final thing I want to share about Michael’s approach to teaching that I loved was that he was always so open, so curious, so eager to learn from others, and so game. I mean, you’d run an idea by him on a whim and he’d be like “OKEE-DOKEE!! Let’s give it a try!”  One time, when I was Dept Chair, the idea was to take the first year cohort of graduate students for a little hike. A chance to get to know them, at least a little bit, as human beings, and for them to start to get to know each other, before the Fall semester consumed them. Next thing I know, I’m renting a van with 14 seats, picking up Michael who is ready to go in his black adidas track-suit, and heading north across the Richmond bridge to his favorite trailhead in Pt Reyes. We carried with us a van-full of unsuspecting students who were about to be embarked on a 15km out and back trek to the edge of a cliff overlooking the pacific ocean. I’m pretty sure several of those students swore off hiking forever after that.   But it was a good day. We fed them ice cream on the way home. 

And that happiest of memories – hiking with Michael Burawoy and a gaggle of new sociology graduate students on his favorite trail in Pt Reyes - brings me back to my grief. That enormous, heavy grief I named just a few minutes ago. 

My colleague and friend Dylan Riley reminded me earlier this week that grief weighs on us because grief is not only sorrow for what is lost.  Grief weighs, because it is responsibility, for what remains.

Here at Berkeley, we feel a responsibility to carry forward Michael Burawoy’s work, on so many fronts. He left way too soon and there is so much work that is unfinished.

As I think about gearing up to rejoin the struggle, I’m inspired by Michael’s teaching as a pillar of his life’s work - starting with the way he practiced teaching as refusal of the commodification of learning, and as resistance against neoliberal and managerial pressures within the university that would diminish and deaden and devalue our genuine connections with each other and with the world.

I’m feeling like right now, those pressures are increasing, and we need to train ourselves against them. To start, we could put on our own personal equivalents of Michael’s black Adidas track suit -- and take a walk with friends. Friends we already know and trust and love, and friends we are open to getting to know - open in the way Michael always was – to new humans we might learn from, and to new and more just communities we might form and become, as students and as teachers, all of us always both.

Today, the weight still feels really heavy. But I’m hoping that with practice, I/we will learn how to carry this weight more lightly, and even with good humor, as Michael Burawoy did. As I think about the tapestry of extraordinary human beings here in Berkeley and across the globe who are knit together at this moment through our connections - and our myriad ongoing conversations – with Michael Burawoy, I think we will make a good try of it at the least.

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The death of Professor Burawoy is a profound loss to the world.

I was a  sociology graduate student from 1960-1966, followed by an academic career.  I witnessed the vision, scholarship, and leadership of Professor Burawoy in the students and administrators he mentored. His spirit will continue to guide me.

J.Herman Blake
Professor Emeritus
Medical University of South Carolina
Iowa State University

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Tribute to a legend, a true Sociologist. A revolutionary deep thinker and an intellectual, Professor Burawoy will be profoundly missed. His legacy lives on in the students and people he inspired and  the worlds he helped me (us) reimagine. I still remember the day the fire alarm went off during our Sociological Theory class. Everyone started to evacuate. So, needless to say, I was surprised when Professor Burawoy said, “We’re having class outside!” As I reminisce, that moment solidified what I had already begun to feel— coming to Berkeley was the best decision I had ever made, and Burawoy was at the heart of that realization. As a first-generation, formerly incarcerated Chicano student, I spent much of my life believing that academia wasn’t meant for people like me; society reinforced this with its policing, imprisonment, alienation.But in Burawoy’s classroom, I discovered a space where my lived experience wasn’t something to be ashamed of or conceal—it was something to explore, critique, and connect to broader social forces. 

Professor Burawoys pedagogy began to transform my view of education. His classes were intellectually rigorous; they were passionate, raw, and profound. Despite struggling with the materials my first year, I was eager to learn more and enrolled in Professor Burawoys advanced theory course, dedicated to the great W.E.B. Du Bois. I thought I knew the discipline before coming to Berkeley, only to find out that I would become a lifelong learner (and that’s ok). Through Burawoys teaching, I gained a foundation in critical theory, diving deep into the works of Fanon, Gramsci, Marx, Foucault, and many more. He made power, inequality, and social structures tangible, showing me how they weren’t just abstract ideas but real, lived experiences that shaped our world. His passion for Marxist sociology wasn’t just theoretical—it was about exposing the forces that oppress and empowering us to challenge them in our own way. For me, Burawoy’s classroom was a space of counter-hegemony—a site where I could reclaim knowledge as a tool for liberation rather than exclusion. His influence extended beyond academia; it shaped my sense of purpose, commitment to justice, and understanding of the world. Thank you for everything, Professor. I will miss you, just as I miss every one of my Homies gone by tragedy. 

Marx wrote, “Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.” Professor Burawoy, you didn’t just interpret the world—you changed it. Rest In Power, BB!

Juan Flores
B.A. Sociology 2019
MPP/MSW 2026

Photo taken by Zainab Altai

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I studied at Berkeley from 2006-2010, and was very interested in learning from the University’s most famous Marxist & labor scholar when I signed up for Burawoy’s 101 series.  His classes framed sociological theory as a heated and ongoing dialogue on the most important questions in life.  Who has power? Who should have power?  What is the role of the state in society? What is the best way to divide labor among different people?  The connections that Burawoy made between the readings and current events, the lecture time he devoted to directly engaging students, and his incredible persistence in remembering our names, made us feel like he was genuinely interested in OUR thoughts about these questions and how these issues impacted us.  It felt like our opinions mattered, like we were actually participating in the discussion with Hegel, Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Gramsci, Foucault and Fanon.

I loved attending Berkeley, but sometimes I feel like being accepted to the University was the peak of my achievements.  I have not been career driven, or had a particularly significant “impact” in the years since I graduated.  I like to joke that if I put a “UC Berkeley Alumni” plate on my beat-up 2009 Hyundai Accent, the University would contact me and pay me to take it off.

But when I think of Professor Burawoy and what his teaching and commitment to public sociology communicated, I don’t feel like his time and expertise were wasted on me, or ever had anything to do with what I might hypothetically achieve.  It doesn’t matter that I am currently a non-income earning, stay-at-home mother living in a one-bedroom apartment.  He believed that knowledge belongs to everyone.  This is why I donated to the University (for the first time ever) to support the endowment in honor of his retirement.  It’s why when I saw him walking & carrying his groceries years after I graduated, I chased him for several blocks (pushing my baby in his stroller) so that I could thank him for what he taught me.  The content and method of his teaching connected me with my deepest values and faith.

Professor Burawoy made me feel part of something greater than myself.  I’m so sorry that he is gone, and so grateful for his mind, spirit and life.

MaryAnn Crawford Miller 

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Dear colleagues,

Please find my obituary on Michael Burawoy in the Vienna-based magazine TAGEBUCH

https://tagebuch.at/2025/02/soziologie-fuer-alle-zum-tod-von-michael-burawoy/ 

It is really sad.

With kind regards,

Jens Kastner

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A... kademie der bildenden Künste Wien

PD Dr. phil. habil. Jens Kastner
Ästhetik und Kunstsoziologie | Aesthetics and Art Sociology

Institut für Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften | Institute for Art Theory and Cultural Studies

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In Memory of Professor Michael Burawoy

I’ve never written a tribute before, and don’t really know how to write one. To be honest, I’ve never lost someone so important to me in the past 30 years of my life. But I feel I really need to write something about Professor Michael Burawoy. I had the privilege to study social theory with him for three semesters when I was an undergraduate student at Berkeley 10 years ago. He’s one of the kindest and most humorous people I’ve ever known. He showed me what it means to be passionate about sociology and about social justice. He encouraged me to think like a theorist at a time when I—as an international student—was unsure about whether I would be able to comprehend the dense theoretical texts by Marx, Lenin, Gramsci, and Fanon in a foreign language. He taught me the importance of engaging in theoretical dialogues, challenging methodological dogmas, and asking big questions that matter in the current social milieu.

In the first week of Soc 101 back in 2015, he arranged a special session (with his amazing GSIs) for all the international students in his class. Theory, he told us, is just like another language, and even native speakers would need to learn this language as well. Thanks to what he said in that session, I became much more confident (and comfortable) about “smoking Social Theory (ST) on the beach.” Perhaps too comfortable—I asked so many questions in his class that he had to set “quotas” for me to make sure other students have an equal opportunity to participate in the classroom discussions. Nevertheless, I learned so much from participating in his lectures and in his extra “anything goes” sessions, not just about Marxism and the Extended Case Method, but also about the praxis of “living” theory. I literally cannot think about social theory and sociology without thinking about him. And I still talk to my colleagues about how much his strict word limit (e.g., explaining Marx’s theory of history in 500 words) improved my writing skills.

In the comments for my final paper for Soc 103 (an advanced theory seminar/research practicum on “Our University”), he wrote, “Yuchen, Excellent! As always you are a devoted sociologist and here you successfully engage both the Diversity Report and Durkheim … You obviously take the sociological enterprise very seriously and understand methodology with great sophistication – the idea of sequential interviewing (which by the way is at the heart of participant observation) and of the reconstruction of theory through the discovery of anomalies as you do with the diversity report. You are also keen to integrate theory with research. This all augurs well for your future as a sociologist.” When I translated this to my mom, she was so shocked that a famous professor would use the word “sociologist” to refer to an undergraduate student. But I knew that’s how he treats his students—not as passive recipients of knowledge, but as colleagues and interlocutors who are/will be producers of sociological knowledge. Indeed, I chose to do my PhD at the University of Chicago because he told me, “You are made for Chicago.” (A professor later told me that probably meant I’m not radical enough for Berkeley, but I hope he meant I’m at least good enough for his alma mater.)

The last time we met was at the 2024 Spring Institute at UChicago. He was the keynote speaker, and I presented a conversation-analytic paper about in-depth interviewing. As we all know, he’s more of a macro-sociologist studying major historical transformations through an ethnographical lens. But I turned out to be more interested in “micro” sociology—especially in that paper, I was looking at the minutiae details of conversational turns. I knew he was critical of ethnomethodology and the interactionism of the Chicago School. Still, he encouraged me to pursue that path and to continue thinking about reflexivity. I forgot to ask him if my presentation could get me a B.B. (“Bloody Brilliant,” as he always says to his students), but I guess I really need to get that paper out and carry on his devotion to reflexive sociology—even if I’m taking a different path.

This is probably a badly written tribute, partly because I’ve never written anything in this genre before, but, more importantly, because words cannot express how much I appreciate his mentorship.

I will always miss him.

– Yuchen Yang, Class of 2017

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Yuchen Yang, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor in Sociology
School of Social Policy and Society
College of Social Sciences
University of Birmingham

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Dear Berkeley Sociology community,

I am heartbroken by the loss of our fabulous Michael Burawoy. Here is my remembrance.

In solidarity,
Jordanna Matlon

*****
Michael Burawoy is so loved. I write in the present tense because the love he gave reciprocates and multiplies. It lives. As the tributes come in, his presence is clear...Michael had just emailed, had just visited, someone was reading his article, teaching his book, or only this week speaking about him in class (as was I). Michael had the ability to be everywhere at once and when he was there, he was always and fully present. He made me and so many of us feel special. I very much hope that all of us who love him remember him by his life and not his death. We owe him that much.

Michael was pivotal for my intellectual trajectory. I had the dumb luck of having him teach my first year PhD Social Theory course. I went on to take a four-student-led Marxism reading group with him as our advisor, then a year-long independent study under him as chair of my MA thesis, and later he chaired my qualifying exams. I thought my dissertation was doing something different so I didn't have him on my committee, but as my theoretical framework matured I came back to Gramsci and have him to thank for it. I am grateful for having told him that.

I had the incredible privilege of sparring with Michael over the sociological canon at the Decolonizing Sociology conference that Brown hosted in 2021, and we later published the exchange in Critical Sociology. In a message titled "Thank you," he wrote to me and my co-panelist,

"Thank you for your papers responding to my paper. I enjoyed hearing both of them. It was both an honor and very moving to be taken so seriously.

I like to think it is a tribute to Berkeley's department that a new generation of sociologists should be inclined and feel free to criticize an old generation!"

I thought, but never told Michael, that it was not Berkeley that gave me that space, but him. Michael had a special humility to listen to junior scholars and to take pride in a challenge. There was no fear or awe, only warmth and welcome.

When my book came out, Michael agreed to be a discussant for it and those of several comrades' at ISA Melbourne. Tragically, my mother died just days before our panel, and I canceled my trip. Despite being overwhelmed with sadness and responsibilities, I did not want to miss the experience of Michael - one of my absolute favorite humans - engaging my work. So there I was, up at 4am, Zooming in. We connected later that summer at ASA, and I opened my heart to him about my loss. He listened deeply and shared stories from his own life that were profoundly personal. It was a healing conversation that I still hold onto when I grieve her.

After our ISA panel, Michael wrote to me,

"Yes, Jordanna, I don't think one ever recovers from the death of one's parents, but one just gets used to the idea. But one can continue communing with them, having conversations with them, remembering them. One of the great things in life is memory.

I've no doubt that your own children will console you in these times of grief. Best, Michael."

We are all Michael's children. May we be there for each other now.

Jordanna Matlon
Berkeley Sociology PhD alum

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Tribute to Michael B.B. Burawoy

Every time I cross the street, I think of you. For an extraordinary man who traveled the
world over and over, how mundane to leave us two blocks away from your home. Were
you just stepping onto the crosswalk? Were you halfway across Grand Avenue? You did
not use a cell phone, and your eyes were more alert to the world around you than most.
You must have seen that SUV coming, but it was 7 pm. Dressed in your usual black
corduroys—the ones you inevitably covered in chalk every single class—black jacket,
and leather cap, you might have blended into a dark winter night for a drunk or
distracted driver who did not care for crosswalks. 
 

You did not care for cars. All your life you biked to work. You got doored once on
College Avenue on your way to campus. Remember? I was waiting outside your office
when you arrived with a hand wrapped in a mitten of toilet paper. I rushed you to the
hospital. Seated beside you as a nurse stitched your wound 18 times, you turned to me
and said, “so, about those qualifying exams.” Both dedicated and incredibly stubborn,
you insisted on holding office hours in an Emergency Room that afternoon. Even then, I
enjoyed talking to you. 
 

“Interesssssttiiiinnngg,” was one of your favorite words, now echoing in my mind. You
pronounced it slowly, rocking your head, munching on the syllables and the ideas,
affirming, encouraging, even when disagreeing and about to flip an argument on its
head and inside out. I often catch myself doing the same in office hours with my
students. I trace my compulsive nodding and the best of my teaching tricks to your epic
social theory class—I took it once for my doctoral qualifying exams, and a second time
teaching with you, my favorite year at UC Berkeley.

It was during that second year on March 4th, 2011, that you taught Foucault on the
footsteps of Wheeler Hall in solidarity with all protesting fee hikes. I had a good angle to
take a picture that would become your favorite picture of yourself (pic below), now
headlining hit-and-run articles and memorials. “Those were the days!!” you wrote of the
picture years later. You had retired from teaching theory—I never thought you
would—and I invited you to guest lecture in my social theory class. Seated among my
students for a new—and final—lecture on W.E.B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction, I
marveled at your ability to translate the most complex arguments into simple
sketches—your trademark, alongside screaming “BB!” for “Bloody Brilliant” students
answering the questions you posed to keep them engaged.

We walked home after class and picked up my three-year-old daughter from her
daycare along the way. You joined my husband, daughter, and I for dinner. You were
family. You gifted my daughter a Paddington Bear, which she loved then. You might not
want to know this, but just recently, I spotted Paddington Bear towering a pile of bunnies
with distressed haircuts and band-aids that my now kindergartener has outgrown and

wants out the door. Two days later, I heard the shattering news and reached out for
Paddington Bear, grateful he was still there. I’m holding on to this one. I’m holding on to
your kindness, your bloody brilliance, and all my memories of you.

Picture: The six of us teaching theory in 2010-2011, Adam Reich, Elise Herrala, Kate
Maich, Nazanin Shahrokni, Zach Levenson, and I, gifted Michael a framed copy of his
March 4 th picture lecturing outside Wheeler Hall. He loved it, and we loved him.
May he live forever in our hearts.
Ana Villarreal, Berkeley PhD 2016

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Tribute to Michael Burawoy
Written by Joanna Reed, on behalf of the UC-AFT Bay Area Chapter executive board
David Skolnick, Timothy Vollmer, Jose Adrian Barragan-Alvarez, David Walter, Balthazar Beckett,
Nicholas Dehler, Sarah Rosenkrantz, Tehmina Khan, Joseph Klett, Anibel Ferus-Comelo, Ramona
Collins, Margi Wald, Jennifer Nelson, Cameron Clark, Catherine Bordel, Khalid Kadir, Barbara Barnes

We, the members of UC-AFT, the union that represents lecturers and librarians across
the UC system, wish to express our profound sadness and grief at Michael Burawoy’s
passing. Michael was an unrepresented member of our union for decades, which
speaks volumes in expressing his support for lecturers’ struggles for living wages, more
secure working conditions and for the recognition of our contributions and membership
in the university community. Michael worked to break down barriers across different
faculty job titles and hierarchies to emphasize our common ground in the face of the
ongoing neoliberalization of higher education. Through his work as Berkeley Faculty
Association Chair, he collaborated with UC-AFT in organizing events and speaker
panels where lecturers and tenured faculty shared the stage, creating rare spaces for
dialogue and collaboration and stirring activism across faculty ranks in support of public
education. He advocated for lecturers in the Academic Senate, co-authoring a study
entitled “Second Class Citizens: A Survey of Berkeley Lecturers” and helped to pass an
Academic Senate resolution in support of lecturers during our last contract campaign.
He was a familiar presence at our protests and rallies, an eloquent voice of support.
I was fortunate to know Michael across two related contexts—I was part of the campus
leadership of UC-AFT when Michael was BFA Chair and his colleague in the Sociology
department. 

As a colleague, Michael went out of his way to make lecturers feel like we
were valued members of the community, and that we were in fact experts on teaching
that others could learn from. Despite his stature in the field and his own renown as a
teacher, he would seek out teaching advice from us. He worked to make the department
more welcoming for all faculty, tenured and non-tenured alike. These were countless
small things that added up to a big difference. Reorganizing department mailboxes,
advocating for adding lecturers to listings on the department website, inviting lecturers
to lunch, nominating lecturers for awards, organizing a teaching colloquium for lecturers,
senate faculty and graduate students, attending lecturer bargaining sessions—these are
just a few examples. In his daily interactions he worked to build community and remove
barriers that could stand in the way. He did this with charm and grace and humor. He
also inspired confidence in others and inspired us to do our best work as public
sociologists. I know he did that for me. He would say, “Joanna, you are representing an
organization of more than 1000 people on our campus. You speak.” Or, taking the time
to listen to a radio show where I was a guest and telling me, “you sound as if you have
been doing this all your life”. He found the time and care to make so many of us feel that
we had valuable contributions to make.

A lifelong scholar of labor, he would say that he turned his attention to his own
workplace once he could no longer work in factories. As UC-AFT co-chair, when I tried
to thank Michael for speaking at yet another rally, or helping organize another event, he
always waved me off in his characteristically modest way. He considered it a matter of
course that he would contribute his time and talents to support lecturers, as we were engaged together in the fight for public education and for upholding the teaching
mission of the university. For him, it wasn’t worthy of mentioning, but to the rest of us his
support was deeply meaningful because we knew that his level of advocacy and
commitment was rare, as was his humility, openness and friendship. He would say—if
the university is going to meet its teaching obligations by relying on non-tenured faculty,
then “lecturers should have careers”. I feel deeply grateful that I had the chance to know
and work with Michael and consider him a friend. He was an inspiration to so many of
us. He left us too soon, and with so much important work undone. I hope that we can
honor his legacy by continuing to fight for public education, by enacting the values of
community that Michael held dear, and always, to put our hearts and soul into our
teaching.

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Open Letter in Memoriam Michael Burawoy

21 February 2025

It’s hard even to imagine, that Michael Burawoy, my enthusiastic teacher, colleague and friend
for almost three decades pass away. I am writing to say openly about multiple meanings of
works with Michael for me personally and, as I think, for my colleagues-sociologists, with
whom he has studied the “Global North”. But I will only point out three turning moments in my
professional and academic career in which Michael was meaningful to me.
 

Many years ago, at the begining of 1990 th , I met him the first time in Vorkuta. It was summer.
And I could take a break from writing my PhD thesis for the degree of Candidate of Sociological
Sciences in Moscow. I happily agreed to accompany a well-known professor of sociology from
Berkeley for a week as a translator and gatekeeper for this short time. For me, he was an
‘American Marxist sociologist’ who came to a polar city, one might say to the ends of the Earth,
to study the rise and the fall of the miners' movement in Soviet Russia during the transition
period. I was astonished how far he could go to develop sociological theory. And we discussed
with him the possibilities of applying Western theories to such ‘latitudes’ and to my research
topic.
 

Then, till the end of 1990th , we worked together almost every summer in Syktyvkar, in the Komi
Science Centre, where I returned after defending my PhD thesis. I could say that we worked in
the same labour collective. Moreover, we were at roughly the same ‘site’ but with different
research projects. Together with Pavel Krotov and Tanya Lytkina, he was studying two local
factories there. At the same time as I was studying other enterprises in the city, collaborating
with my friends from some Russian regions, conducting numerous studies within the Institute for
Comparative Labour Studies (ISITO) together with Simon Clark. I guess, despite differences our
research teems had some similarities. We discussed our findings, argued, joked and supported
each other to raise the sociological imagination, expand the meanings of the Soviet legacy and
explore strategies for living in a renewing society. Since that time, I have been inspired by his
idea of returning knowledge to where it was received. Together with Tanya Lytkina, and
sometimes individually, we published many papers addressing Russian sociologists and other
social scientists.

At least we met once again in St. Petersburg both working at various universities and facing
dramatic change within neoliberal academia. At that moment he traveled around the world with
his 11 theses on Public sociology. In 2007 I invited him to give a lecture at St Petersburg State
University. But the university managers insisted on a series of lectures during one week. I asked
him if he was ready for such a challenge and he agreed. Despite the tight two-day schedule, he
also agreed to speak at the European University of St. Petersburg and the Centre for Independent
Sociological Research. Moreover, in 2015 he came again to St. Petersburg and once again spoke
at several sociological centers. And yet again I was embraced his openness to different
audiences.

What else’s? The last time I have meet him in Vienna. After one of the working days of the 3d
ISA Forum of Sociology ‘The futures we want: Global Sociology and the Struggle for a Better
Life’, we met in a café, drank coffee, talked about the changes in our lives and even argued about
whether to tip. At every opportunity he was willing to meet with me. Every time he was very
fast with response to me, signing all messages with “Love”. Only my last message to him was
without answer. As always, he left a puzzle, didn't give an open answer, but left the door open to finding another path to solve it. But what is “love”? Is it power or gold, is it work or something
else? What individuals or communities should loss to enhance “common sense” of love? Now I
think, that he knew that love winds the clocks of time and life. Also I think or may be just feel,
that Michael loved Russia. He talked sometimes, that he had broken his mind with research on
Russia. Anyway he planned to be back feeling or knowing that only with Sociology – Public,

Professional, Critical and Policy – together we can understand, discover, resolve and even
reconstitute these puzzle how to make the better world for human beings.

Svetlana Yaroshenko,
Independent researcher since 2022
Summer fields [Sommerfeld], Germany
[Invited guest and participant of the Course by Mary Beth Kelsey with title
“Gender and society: the sociology of women”.
University of California, Berkeley, 2000
Chair of economic sociology department in Komi science center,  1998- 2006 

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Dear Sociology Folks at UC Berkeley,

I am Dean Stevens, Administrator at The Community Church of Boston. We are a radical congregation of long standing a Sunday morning speaker series.in the City of Boston. We just heard the news about Michael. We send you our deepest condolences.

Michael was scheduled to speak at the church this Sunday. He was going to be here in person, and was going to be with friends in Cambridge. We are shocked.

His friend and colleague in Boston, Miranda Dotson, might join us, to talk about Michael. His address was to be titled “WEB Dubois and the Question of Palestine”, based in large part on the book he wrote about DuBois (who spoke many times from our pulpit from the 30’s to the ‘50s). His last address, in 1959, is digitized on our YouTube Channel. 

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Dear UC Berkeley Sociology Community,

I am sharing an obit, Michael Burawoy, the People’s Sociologist, which we recently published in Frontline.

Michael’s writings were deeply inspiring and shaped my understanding of sociology and its role beyond academia. I always believed I would meet him someday and thank him for being a guiding light. His sudden passing felt like a personal loss, and I felt compelled to co-write this obituary-- to express my gratitude posthumously in whatever small way I could.

 

May dear Michael rest in power. Grateful to UC Berkeley Sociology Department for nurturing one of the finest sociologists.  

https://frontline.thehindu.com/other/obituary/michael-burawoy-peoples-sociologist-uc-berkeley-dies/article69242233.ece

--
Nancy
Department of Sociology
Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, 110007

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When Someone Sees You

To Michael Burawoy

February 4th, 2025

Sandra Portocarrero

Berkeley Sociology Class of 2012

I woke up to a fragmented, bellicose world that no longer has Michael Burawoy in it. I am trying to comprehend the confusion I feel, the anxiety that woke me up at four in the morning today, thinking of how absurd this world feels. I decided to do what he taught me best: to reflect. Michael, here is my reflexivity exercise: how I see myself through you and how I see you.

 

2010. I was a community college transfer student majoring in sociology at Berkeley. I did not know who Michael Burawoywas, but whoever manages the lottery of life decided that the insecure, passionate about justice, opinionated, and emotional 20-something-year-old Sandra would have Michael teach her sociological theory. It was a two-semester class, so in addition to another course I took with Michael, I saw him in the classroom for 1.5 years. Everyone who knew him knows Michael gave his best to others in the field, the classroom, and his friendships. He was crazy beautiful. He loved the word hegemony, Frantz Fanon, and teaching about the struggles of the working class to his students. He loved talking about the capitalists, who were digging their own graves! But the 14 years of friendship with Michael started during those intimate spaces of growth called office hours.

 

I was there every week. Michael listened to all the ideas that his students had. Nothing was ever too stupid for him. He would listen, grab his hair, show that silly smile he had when thinking, look up to the ceiling, and respond. When Michael learned about my father, who was incarcerated in a small town called Taft in California, he didn’t say, “I am sorry.” That was not Michael. Michael pushed me to think about the structures that had led my father to become a consumer of drugs and then a “street entrepreneur” in Tulsa. He pushed me to understand why my mother’s mental health issues emerged within a structure where women are marginalized and othered. When he learned that I had been undocumented, he did not make a fuzz. For Michael, all these things that felt heavy to me were somewhat predictable—anyone who knows sociological theory will understand how the systems of production shape individual outcomes. These systems are built to alienate us, to extract the most from us and our families, to make those who do not control capital fail within the cracks of different systems. Michael redeemed us with knowledge.

 

When someone sees you, not your “story,” but you, it redeems you. Michael saw me. Michael saw that I cared about learning and writing, that I felt the struggles of people deeply in my heart and in my mind. Michael knew that I wanted to grow independent from the stories that poverty, violence, and marginalization had written for me and my parents. One is not born but becomes a woman; one is not born but becomes a Marxist. I wanted to become someone, and Michael saw that.

 

When I graduated from Berkeley, my relationship with Michael grew. After graduation, I applied for a job at Southern Copper Corporation. I had read “Antinomian Marxist” and wanted to experience what Michael did working in the human relations area at Anglo-American in Zambia. I wanted to live the life of who was, back then, one of my idols, the life of who was, up until a few days ago, my correspondence buddy and friend. Michael said: ok, you are crazy! I said: Michael, I know! I got the job. I moved to Peru to work for Southern Copper and got a gig as a political sociology teacher at a local university. I wanted my students to read what I had read, even if that meant translating some texts for them. Michael visited. Michael and I had ceviche with French fries and visited bougie stores in Miraflores, we walked around the streets of Jesus Maria. These neighborhoods mean nothing to others, but these are the streets where I grew up, streets Michael got to know. Michael pushed me to write a piece about my time at the mining company. He urged me to write down my field notes and reflect on them daily. I was a rebel, and I never conducted participant observation. I wrote a piece for him and published it because he pushed me, but I told him: Michael, I do not want to do observations now; I want to get a doctorate in Sociology, and I am busy applying. Just write me a strong letter and help me with my essays. Michael was disappointed. He said I was missing an opportunity, and I would regret not having that data. Still, he offered to pay for my school visits when I got admitted anyway. I declined his generosity. He had already done too much.

 

During my doctoral years, I experienced profound personal pain. Michael got involved in everything. He had the courage of a lion. Michael met me at 10 pm in California via Zoom to strategize legal matters. Michael read my work and answered my emails from Ghilarza, where I went to visit Antonio Gramsci’s home simply because Michael loved him. He always reminded me in e-mails: Do not forget, the greatest social theorist is Pierre Bourdieu! Michael held my child at 4 months old, a child whose pre-birth story only Michael and a few trusted people in my inner circle know. Michael rested in my hotel bed to watch Octonauts with my daughter when I took her to the field to gather more data in 2023. Michael laughing like a kid is how I will remember him.

 

Michael loved life; he had a bleeding heart. He rode his bike with that purple towel on his shoulder that he had had since the 70s;  Michael lived 77 years, and he changed hundreds of lives. Michael Burawoy deserved a grand finale. Michael Burawoy did not deserve to go the way he did.

 

I am writing these words from London, where I am experiencing my first year as a professor in Michael’s birthplace, the United Kingdom. I am waiting for Michael to come back to London; his ashes will rest in Highgate Cemetery, not far from my new home. I find some comfort in knowing that Michael will be close to me again. I plan on drinking Russian vodka by his grave and talk about those bloody capitalists. Of course, he only chose Highgate Cemetery because of Karl Marx. I find comfort in knowing I will take Manufacturing Consent to Africa with me in 14 days, where I am taking students so they can conduct participant observation across organizations in Nairobi. When someone like Michael Burawoy sees you, it changes your life. I will dedicate my career to you, Michael. You were bloody brilliant.

 

Photos by Sandra Portocarrero

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As the news of Michael's death spread through our networks earlier this month, one of the many
recurring threads in the remembrances that were circulated was the fact that Michael kept in
touch with so many of his former students. Given his intellectual generosity and genuine interest
in our trajectories, it comes as no surprise to have read how many of us had just been in touch
with him in the weeks before his death. Our exchange the week prior was prompted by a card
that I had snail-mailed to him to share the good news that I've been promoted to full professor.
He responded with a congratulatory email, which led to a series of emails that took us down
memory lane to the 2001/2002 academic year when I was one of his theory GSIs.
 

Michael did something really special for this particular Mexican working class kid. He made
himself relatable and accessible in so many ways, which then made theory, graduate school, and
academia in general feel more within reach. His love of collaborative teaching, learning, and
research was so authentic that he turned what at times felt overwhelming into something
enjoyable, precisely because he made it collective. What he modeled in and out of the classroom
- a pedagogy of connection - has deeply shaped my own approach to teaching and research, all of
which I do alongside my undergraduates.
 

In all of these years of teaching at Vassar, Michael has come to mind regularly for those reasons.
I now get why he smiled so big and nodded so emphatically (whilst twirling a lock of hair at the
back of his head) whenever an undergraduate in his year-long theory course chimed in to connect
the dots. To see that process of understanding unfold among students and to be part of it is,
indeed, extremely gratifying!
 

Teaching my "classical traditions" introductory sociology course every fall, which borrows
heavily from the way I learned to teach theory with Michael, will feel different now that he's
gone. But I'm glad that in our last interaction I took the opportunity to convey just how much he's
shaped what I do - and how much I've come to love this thing that once felt so inaccessible.
 

His legacy lives on in so many large and small ways through all of us who have been lucky
enough to call him friend and mentor.
Eréndira Rueda, Berkeley PhD, 2008 

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I'd like to offer my memories of Michael from a completely different
perspective. I'm not part of the sociological community and had a
different kind of friendship with Michael. For 40 years I was his
accountant and tax preparer. I know that the practice of accounting has
a dry and humorless reputation. I tried to dispel that notion throughout
my career. Accountants often develop personal relationships with their
clients. We learn many details about their lives, and especially with
academics we'd develop a deep mutual respect. My life-long association
with UC Berkeley helped me in acquiring many people from campus as
clients. It also didn't hurt that my first office was on University
Avenue just a few blocks down the street from campus.

What impressed me most about Michael was his deep sense of humility. He
never self-aggrandized himself. He seemed to have very little ego. I
didn't even know when he became president of the American Sociological
Association until I was informed by another sociologist. As to his work
I was privileged to hear the details of his research, and even the
minutiae of his factory work. As a young student I had a job in a
manufacturing plant, and I was in awe of Michael for having survived
miserable factory conditions for longer than I was able to. I heard
details of his graduate students' accomplishments over the years, and
how proud he was of them. I also enjoyed the anecdotes about his dinners
with students. I think the bill was something like $200 in the 1970s for
him and a group of students for a great restaurant dinner. What a
splurge. Those tabs decidedly grew over the years, but Michael was
always happy to host them.

Michael always protested that he made too much money at UC, no matter
that I assured him his salary was modest in comparison to professors in
the sciences, and he deserved every penny. Early on he started a
departmental fund known as the Carol Hatch Fund, in memory of a deceased
department employee, and funded it each year. I'm glad that a fund in
his name has been established, and I've contributed my own  small amount
to it. There are so many aspects to Michael's life I could mention that
it would take volumes to list. I'd call him an intellectual, dedicated,
pleasant, inspirational, aspirational (especially on his students'
behalf), individual. Feel free to add your own descriptions, and
together we could collaborate on a 500 page document of his attributes.
In short Michael was a real mensch.
--
Brian O'Neil
B.A. UCB 1972

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The first thing that Professor Burawoy taught us in Sociological Theory was how to spell his name. Over 20 years later, I can still remember the animated way he said, "B-u-r-a-W-o-Y?" while slightly rocking back and forth with the energy that he exuded for every 100+ person lecture he delivered. 

I enjoyed his class so much that I invited my mom to it, and she was impressed by his excitement and passion, even if she didn't understand most of what he was saying. He has forever shaped the way I think and live, as I know he has done for so many of his students. I stopped by his makeshift memorial when I found out about his untimely death, and saw that someone had left a note that said, "You have made the world better," and I couldn't agree more. Professor Burawoy will be missed but I know his light will continue to shine. 

Amy Chou

Berkeley BA Sociology, 2005 

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Professor Burawoy made learning theory and complex social issues engaging. He had the ability to motivate deep, critical, reflective, thought with such light heartedness and rigor. I vividly recall the final session of Soc.101B, Spring 2009. He recommended a canonical theorist "consummate his marriage or but a cat"... What can I say, my experience as his student and how he compelled me to think outside the box has been the light to the end of a dark tunnel I never stopped walking towards. His "bottom" to "top" approach inspired me to search, question, create and pursue an alternative to humiliation in the educational system. As I finally consolidate in writing an idea that sparked as a student of Global Sociology Live, I will continue to teach children with the same enthusiasm he taught theory. 

You were "bloddy brilliant," Professor Burawoy. 

In Peace,

Angelica Condey

(B.A. in Sociology, 2011) 

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I can't seem to articulate what Michael meant to me. So I will say only this: Thank you Michael Burawoy for being in my life for 24 years (and now in my head and heart for the rest of my life). Now I take all that I loved in you and make it my own. Thank you for the 80 siblings and for the countless blessings. Thank you for speaking out for Palestine with all your clarity and conviction, your "end of life project," you said. You asked me to sing for you and I never did, but here,  my childhood song you know: "Some say, the world is made for fun and frolic...and so do I!" Be with those you loved, who left long before you. Enjoy the luminous journey. Please save me a slot in your office hours. And rest in peace Bloody Brilliant Teacher at the Barricades, Saint (yes I think so), Dancer of jigs, Shaper of Crafts, Shaper of Dreams, my Guru who lit up the sky. 

Fareen Parvez

Ph.D. 2011, UC Berkeley Sociology