Miriam Silverberg

Biography

Miriam Silverberg passed away in the morning on March 16, 2008.

Miriam was a Professor of History and former Director of the Center for the Study of Women (CSW) at UCLA.  Her field of research covered Japan, Modern Japanese Thought, Culture, Social Transformation; Social and Cultural Theory; and Comparative Historiography.  Miriam directed CSW from 2000 to 2003.  She created the CSW Workshop Project that is still in existence today.  One of these workshops, “Migrating Epistemologies,” met up until 2007.  Under Miriam’s directorship, CSW sponsored a groundbreaking conference titled Feminism Confronts Disability.  She also launched the first Biennial Women’s Community Action Award Dinner (with the UCLA Women’s Studies Program); a conference entitled Educating Girls: New Issues in Science and Technology Education; and a talk by Matsui Yayori on the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal.  Miriam was a vibrant, productive, and important scholar.  Despite debilitating illness over the last several years, she continued her research and writing and published Erotic Grotesque Nonsense: The Mass Culture of Japanese Modern Times in 2007.  To many faculty she was a wonderful colleague and she will be greatly missed.

More on Miriam Silverberg in this Los Angeles Times obituary.