Queens College Distinguished Professor of Sociology Samuel Heilman, one of the world\u2019s leading authorities on Orthodox Judaism and the author of 11 books and numerous studies and articles, pauses during a trek through Maroon Bells Canyon in Aspen, Colorado. An avid hiker, he has also explored terrain on Mount Cook, New Zealand, in the Purple Mountains in Nanjing China, the Grand Canyon of Australia near Blackpool, and Mount Seoraksan, South Korea<\/strong><\/p>\nOne of the world\u2019s leading sociologists of orthodox Judaism and holder of the Harold Proshansky Chair in Jewish Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, Samuel Heilman has written 11 books and numerous studies and articles. He is editor of the journal Contemporary Jewry<\/i> and has received, among other awards, the Marshall Sklare Memorial Award from the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry for \u201ca lifetime of scholarship.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it was a book about a French anthropologist\u2019s trip up the Amazon\u2014Tristes Tropiques<\/i> by Claude L\u00e9vi-Strauss\u2014that shaped his work. \u201cFor me it was a model,\u201d says Heilman. Just as L\u00e9vi-Strauss could find no tribes untouched by civilization, Heilman found no Jewish communities untouched by the modern world. Heilman, who for a couple of years after college studied in a yeshiva, notes that it was when he was working for his doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania (where his mentor was legendary sociologist Erving Goffman) that he decided to \u201cmerge my interests in sociology and Judaism.\u201d His thesis formed the basis for his first book, Synagogue Life<\/i> (1973).<\/p>\n
Heilman is co-author of the recently published The Rebbe<\/i>, a book about Lubavitch movement leader Menachem Schneerson. \u201cHe was the man who really established Lubavitchers in this country and in the world,\u201d Heilman said, \u201cthe man who transformed himself from somebody who was hoping to be an engineer and settle in Paris, to somebody who transformed a Hasidic group into a worldwide movement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Heilman\u2019s evolution from freshly minted PhD to world-renowned scholar began when he started teaching at Queens in 1973. \u201cExcept for sabbaticals and Fulbrights, I\u2019ve spent basically my entire career at Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center,\u201d he says. In fall 2008 he went to the Republic of China as a Fulbright Senior Specialist Professor to help academics set up Jewish studies programs. He has also been a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Jerusalem, a visiting professor at Shalom College at the University of New South Wales Australia, and at the University of Illinois at Chicago, among many other colleges and universities where he has been invited to teach.<\/p>\n
Besides the sociologists Goffman and Morrie Schwartz (of Tuesdays with Morrie<\/i> fame) he has studied with, Heilman counts among his inspirations \u201cthe remarkable immigrants and first-generation Americans who graduate from Queens College each year.\u201d
Favorite book:<\/b> \u201c<\/i>Clifford Geertz\u2019s The Interpretation of Cultures <\/i>or my own most recent book, which is always my favorite.\u201d
Favorite music:<\/b> Mozart, Haydn, and Donizetti\u2019s opera Elixir of Love
<\/i>
Courses taught:<\/b> <\/i>Comparative Religious Fundamentalism, Sociological Theory, and Sociology of Death and Dying.<\/p>\n
Surprising fact:<\/b> <\/i>\u201cI am an immigrant to America who came here with my parents as a Displaced Person.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Name: Samuel Heilman Title: Distinguished Professor Department: Sociology Degree(s): BA Brandeis University; MA New School for Social Research; PhD University of Pennsylvania (all in sociology) Contact Information: Phone: (718) 997-2832 Office: Powdermaker 252FF Email: Samuel.Heilman@qc.cuny.edu “Except for sabbaticals and Fulbrights, I\u2019ve spent basically my entire career at Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center.”- Samuel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"page_category":[],"wf_page_folders":[137],"class_list":["post-1206","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1206"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1869,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1206\/revisions\/1869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"page_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/page_category?post=1206"},{"taxonomy":"wf_page_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_page_folders?post=1206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}