Professor Emeritus of Political Science & Leading Scholar, Lloyd Rudolph, Has Died

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Lloyd Rudolph, professor emeritus of political science, died Jan. 16, in Oakland, Calif. of prostate cancer. He was 88.

He had a long and distinguished career at UChicago, almost entirely in collaboration with his wife, Professor Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, who died in December 2015.  In 2014, the Rudolphs jointly received the Padma Bhushan Award, one of India’s highest civilian honors. The award recognizes distinguished service of a high order to the nation of India in any field.

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Susanne Hoeber Rudolph

Lloyd Irving Rudolph was born in Chicago on Nov. 1, 1927, and grew up in Chicago and Elgin. His mother, Bertha M. Rudolph, was co-operator of the Allied Shoe Company and a leading Hyde Park real estate owner and manager. After graduating from Elgin High School, he was appointed a cadet at West Point in 1945, but resigned his commission to attend Harvard University, from which he graduated magna cum laude in 1948. From Harvard he also earned a master of public administration degree in 1950, and a PhD in political science in 1956. He married Susanne Hoeber Rudolph in 1952.

The Rudolphs had the capacity to express academic criticism of Indian politics in a way that communicated their concerns for the country—a trait that Charkabarty said he admired. They were known for encouraging other South Asian scholars in a variety of disciplines, and sought to integrate into their work the insights provided by social science scholarship from outside political science. Additionally, they were famous for co-teaching courses, and they often lectured together. “They have been so deeply entwined with each other’s thinking and work that it becomes impossible to separate them, even though they each wrote and thought separately,” said Philip Oldenburg, PhD’74, an adjunct associate professor of political science at Columbia University. Oldenburg said that Lloyd was his mentor but treated him as a junior colleague from his first year in graduate school.

Rudolph received grants or fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, National Science Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, the American Institute of Indian Studies, National Endowment for the Humanities and the Fulbright program.

Rudolph published in scholarly journals such as the American Political Science Review, World Politics, Journal of Asian Studies, Modern Asian Studies, and Daedalus. He also wrote opinion pieces for outlets such as Foreign Affairs, New Republic, New York Times Magazine, New York Times Book Review, Christian Science Monitor and The Nation.

See full article at the University of Chicago News. Also, read more about the Rudolphs and their research on the politics of India at the The Indian Express.