| 1 | Name: | Dr. Robert Bellah | |
| Institution: | University of California, Berkeley | ||
| Year Elected: | 1996 | ||
| Class: | 3. Social Sciences | ||
| Subdivision: | 301. Anthropology, Demography, Psychology, and Sociology | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Deceased | ||
| Birth Date: | 1927 | ||
| Death Date: | July 30, 2013 | ||
Robert N. Bellah was Elliott Professor of Sociology Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He was educated at Harvard University, receiving his B.A. in 1950 and his Ph.D. in 1955. He began teaching at Harvard in 1957 before moving to the University of California, Berkeley ten years later. From 1967-97 he served as UC Berkeley Ford Professor of Sociology and also chaired the Center for Japanese and Korean Studies from 1968-74. Dr. Bellah was the author and editor of several essays and books, including the influential articles "Civil Religion in America" (1967) and "Religious Evolution" (1964), the latter of which he transformed into a book. His books include Tokugawa Religion, Beyond Belief, The Broken Covenant, The New Religious Consciousness, Varieties of Civil Religion and Uncivil Religion: Interreligious Hostility in America, and Religion in Human Evolution (2011). In 1985, the University of California Press published Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life , a cultural analysis of American society that Professor Bellah wrote in collaboration with Richard Madsen, William Sullivan, Ann Swidler and Steven Tipton. In 1991 he published a follow-up, The Good Society, written by the same five authors as Habits of the Heart. Dr. Bellah was known for his studies of the relations between religion and related value systems and social functioning and individual development in the United States; his sociological studies were suffused with concern for public morality and the search for deep-rooted community. Among his many honors, Dr. Bellah received the United States National Humanities Medal in 2000. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1996. Robert Bellah died July 30, 2013, at the age of 86, in Oakland, California. | |||