We are sorry to report the death of Social Studies founder Stanley Hoffmann, the Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser University Professor emeritus at Harvard, on September 13th, 2015. He was 86.
Professor Hoffmann is remembered for the astonishing breadth and depth of his scholarship and for his brilliant teaching on subjects ranging from American foreign policy to French politics to ethics. But what those of us who were privileged to study, teach, and work with Professor Hoffmann in Social Studies remember most was his generosity towards students and colleagues, his incisive wit, and his great affection for undergraduates. Professor Hoffmann lectured in Social Studies 10 and taught a junior tutorial in Social Studies until just a few years ago, and he was a steadfast supporter of the program through his retirement. As Noah Rosenblum ’08 wrote, “I owe Stanley my undergraduate major and my senior thesis topic, and a model for a kind of life. He had the grace as a scholar that stamped a 20 year-old me. …. I can only guess about his first students, but his last ones will miss him.”