Friedland, Roger

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Friedland, Roger

PERSONAL:

Education: University of California, Berkeley, B.A., 1969; University of Wisconsin, Madison, M.Sc., 1971, Ph.D., 1977.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Sociology, University of California, 2834 Ellison Hall, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9430. E-mail—[email protected]; [email protected].

CAREER:

University of California, Santa Cruz, lecturer, 1976-77; University of California, Santa Barbara, assistant professor, 1977-83, associate professor, 1983-87, professor of sociology, 1987—, professor of religious studies, 1998—; University of California, Los Angeles, assistant professor, 1981. Visiting professor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1983-84, European University Institute, Florence Italy, 1990, University of Milan, Milan, Italy, 1990; University of Rome, La Sapienza, visiting professor, 2002, Fulbright research professor, 2004-05.

AWARDS, HONORS:

German Marshall fellow, 1978; Fulbright professorships, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1983-84, and University of Rome, La Sapienza, 2004-05; Getty scholar, Getty Research Institute, 1997.

WRITINGS:

Power and Crisis in the City: Corporations, Unions, and Urban Policy, Macmillan (London, England), 1982, Schocken Books (New York, NY), 1983.

(With Robert R. Alford) Powers of Theory: Capitalism, the State, and Democracy, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1985.

(Editor, with A.F. Robertson) Beyond the Marketplace: Rethinking Economy and Society, Aldine de Gruyter (New York, NY), 1990.

(Editor, with Deirdre Boden) NowHere: Space, Time and Modernity, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1994.

(With Robert Hecht) To Rule Jerusalem, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1996.

(Editor, with John Mohr) Matters of Culture: Cultural Sociology in Practice, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2004.

(With Harold Zellman) The Fellowship: The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Fellowship, Regan Books (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to works by others and to periodicals, including Tikkun, Sociological Theory, Annual Review of Sociology, Jerusalem Post, Le Monde Diplomatique, Il Moderno, Contemporary Sociology, Pacific Affairs, Administrative Science Quarterly, Lettre Internazionale, and Current Anthropology.

SIDELIGHTS:

Roger Friedland is the author or editor of a number of books that include To Rule Jerusalem, written with religious studies scholar Richard Hecht. It is based on interviews conducted between 1983 and 1994, as they researched the history of the struggle between Israel and the Israeli Occupied Territories that spans more than half a century. They write of the actions of the Israeli municipal council and its attack on the Palestinian presence, the poor Palestinian families who attempt to retain their positions, and the various communities, including the haridim, inhabited by Orthodox Ashkenazi Jews. Glenn Bowman commented in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute that the authors point out "that the civil strife is not simply between two national groups but also between substantial contingents within the Israeli and Palestinian populations at war with their own peoples over what strategies of national realization should be followed." He described the book as being "balanced in its assessment of the negative impact on any moves towards democracy and human rights played by both Islamic and Jewish fundamentalisms."

The Fellowship: The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Fellowship, written with architect Harold Zellman, was described by New York Times critic Nicolai Ouroussoff as being "a tawdry, often malicious and occasionally entertaining romp through Wright's long life, focusing with particular glee on the cunning manipulations of his wife Olgivanna, their sex-starved daughter, Iovanna, and his many apprentices, who, according to the authors, ranged from sexual predators to doe-eyed innocents yearning to be exploited for the cause of Architecture."

Taliesin was the Wisconsin studio and commune of Wright and his third wife, thirty years his junior, with their winter location being in Arizona. Architects and others came to Taliesin and often became manual laborers rather than creators. Olgivanna was a disciple of Russian mystic George Gurdjieff, and Wright himself believed in the restorative power of nature. Friedland and Zellman note the history of Taliesin, including the number of young men who stayed there, Olgivanna's encouragement of homosexual relationships, poor treatment of clients and workers, Wright's pacifism and anti-Semitism, and his ego. They note that he skimped on materials against the advice of engineers. Regarding his prairie houses, they contend that their lack of basements and attics was the result of Wright's being shut away in those spaces as a child.

Wright and his workers did, however, until his death in 1959, construct many memorable structures, including the Guggenheim Museum, Johnson Wax Building, and Fallingwater. Friedland and Zellman go into detail about the planning and construction of the buildings as well as the personal lives of those closest to Wright. In reviewing The Fellowship in California Bookwatch, a contributor wrote: "A ‘must’ for any comprehensive Wright collection."