June 8, 2016
Dear Members of our Campus Community,
It is with great sadness that I write to share with you the news that Professor Emeritus Mattison Mines passed away earlier this quarter. Professor Mines was an integral member of our Department of Anthropology and devoted more than four decades to building the department, including serving for four years as Chair. Even after achieving emeritus status in 2005, he continued to remain active in his research, in advising graduate students, and in serving our academic community as a Research Professor and as Director of the UC Study Center in The Netherlands.
Professor Mines was renowned for his work as a sociocultural anthropologist, and especially for his research in South India. He wrote with great depth and insight about the historical nature and role of individuals within society, including two highly regarded books: The Warrior Merchants: Textiles, Trade, and Territory in South India and Public Faces, Private Voices: Community and Individuality in South India. The excellence and significance of his research was recognized with Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships, among many other honors. Here on our campus, he received a number of awards for his teaching and service to students; he was a faculty mentor for our residence halls and an active participant in summer orientation programs for incoming freshmen. His academic career reflected his global perspective, including time spent at the University of Washington, Cornell, University of Delhi, and London School of Economics; as an honorary research fellow in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh; and as Director of UC’s Education Abroad Program in Edinburgh and later, as noted above, The Netherlands. He received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from Cornell University, following his A.B. cum laude from the University of Washington.
Professor Mines is dearly missed by our UC Santa Barbara family, as well as by his family, friends, and colleagues around the world. Our campus flag has been lowered in his honor.
Sincerely,
Henry T. Yang
Chancellor