Canadian Studies is proud to announce that former program director Nelson Graburn has been named Distinguished Emeritus of the Year for 2022 by the UC Berkeley Emeriti Association. The award recognizes exceptional accomplishment by an emeritus faculty member since retirement. He will be honored at a reception hosted by the Emeriti Association early next month.
Professor Graburn is a professor emeritus of anthropology who has taught at Berkeley since 1964. He is an expert on Inuit culture and arts, and conducted his fieldwork in the Canadian Arctic. He joined the Canadian Studies Program shortly after its founding, and became a co-director in 1986. In 2005, he was appointed the inaugural holder of the Thomas Garden Barnes Chair in Canadian Studies, and served as program director until his retirement in 2012.
Professor Graburn's current interests sit at the center of cultural preservation, identity, and tourism. Although officially retired, he still teaches a seminar on "Tourism, Art and Modernity" at UC Berkeley, and co-chairs the Tourism Studies Working Group. He also continues to conduct research in the field of contemporary Inuit art. In recent years, he has expanded his research to include the study of contemporary tourism in China and Japan. He continues to travel widely as a consultant and lecturer at various institutions.