Barnard College and the Barnard Department of Anthropology mourn the loss of Professor Emerita Paula G. Rubel, who passed away on May 14, 2018.
Born in 1933, Professor Rubel earned an AB in psychology from Hunter College in 1953 and a PhD in anthropology from Columbia University in 1963. She joined the Department of Anthropology at Barnard in the 1965-6 academic year as a lecturer and, the following year, was hired as an assistant professor. She was tenured in 1970, promoted to full professor in 1974, and retired from the College in 1998. Her husband, Abraham (Abe) Rosman, also retired that same year from Barnard as Professor Emeritus of Anthropology.
Professor Rubel was the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including several National Science Foundation and Social Science Research Council grants and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her scholarly interests included her dissertation research with Kalmyk Mongols who had immigrated from the USSR to New Jersey; exchange systems on the Northwest Coast and Pacific; and, most recently, art collecting. She coauthored much of her work with Professor Rosman, including The Tapestry of Culture: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, which is now in its tenth edition.
We extend our heartfelt condolences to Professor Rubel’s family and friends and to the many students whose lives she touched. A memorial will be held on Saturday, October 13, from 1:00-4:00 p.m. in Sulzberger Parlor; please RSVP by October 1 to Maxine Weisgrau.