Dear MacMillan Colleagues,
I write with the sad news that our friend and colleague Jim Scott, Sterling Professor of Political Science and Professor of Anthropology, emeritus, passed away on July 19, 2024.
Jim had a career of great impact, putting the comparative study of agrarian societies and the voices of those who live in them at the center of scholarly debate and enquiry. His books The Moral Economy of the Peasant (1976), Weapons of the Weak (1985), Seeing Like a State (1998) and The Art of Not being Governed (2009) are some of the most influential and highly cited in political science and anthropology, as well as many other fields. He published much more besides, including foundational works on the study of patronage and clientelism.
At Yale, Jim Scott founded the Agrarian Studies program in 1991, which established an international reputation through its scholarship, weekly colloquia, workshops, and its impact on the many visiting scholars who have passed through its doors. Agrarian Studies moved to MacMillan in 2017, where it is now co-directed by our colleagues Libby Wood and Shivi Sivaramakrishnan. Jim was also active in MacMillan’s Council of Southeast Asia Studies, and in recent efforts to support democracy in Burma and provide a home for Scholars at Risk.
Jim won many awards and accolades, too many to list, and was scheduled to receive the Yale Graduate School’s Wilbur Cross medal this fall. Despite his remarkable success as a scholar, his true priorities were his family, his friends, and building communities that were at once intellectual and social. This past spring at MacMillan we hosted a joyful celebration of Jim, and a showing of the documentary film “A Field of His Own,” which explores his life and work. So many of his friends and colleagues whose work he influenced joined us, it was standing room only.
We are proud and grateful to have had Jim Scott as a colleague, friend, and member of the MacMillan community.
Best,
Steven Wilkinson
Henry R. Luce Director, the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International & Area Studies; Vice Provost for Global Strategy; Nilekani Professor of India & South Asian Studies; Professor of Political Science and International Affairs
Contribute to our memorial site for Jim Scott: https://www.kudoboard.com/boards/eFRfSnJ4