In Memoriam: For Jim: A Tribute to James Ensign Curtis

On May 27, 2005, Sociology lost one of its most brilliant stars. Jim Curtis passed away while at work in his department at the University of Waterloo, doing what he did so well, in the place that he called home for so long. Jim's passing is deeply felt by his loving family and his countless friends both inside and outside of academia. Jim is simply irreplaceable for the professional community — for the many colleagues who were inspired by his immense scholarly achievements, and for an entire generation of students, whose careers Jim helped to launch and whose personal and academic lives he graced over the past 35 years.

I knew Jim for more than three decades. During that time, he was my teacher, mentor, colleague, and comrade. In all of these things, I have never known a better person. Jim was a truly gifted teacher, the wisest of advisors, a pure joy to work with, and a friend on whom I would stake my life.

Jim's legendary humility would make him balk at what I am about to say, but, for me, Jim Curtis was the finest Sociologist that this country has ever produced. I mean no disrespect to the many eminent scholars who have made enduring contributions to Canadian Sociology over the years, but I can think of no others who surpassed Jim in both the quantity and the quality of their work, or who were more masterful in their breadth of knowledge and their depth of understanding about our field.

It has been said that modest people sometimes have a lot to be modest about, but Jim was a humble man of truly stunning accomplishments. Book projects were not his first love, and yet Jim co-authored five monographs, while also co-editing fifteen other volumes. These works address such wide ranging topics as the Sociology of Knowledge, Social Inequality, Social Problems, the Sociology of Sport, and Comparative Social Structure. As a writer of research papers, Jim was virtually without peer in Canada. He published some one hundred articles and close to forty chapters in books. These works cover the gamut of the social sciences, appearing not only in the leading Canadian and American Sociology journals, but also in some of the most prominent journals in Political Science, Behavioural Science, Sport Science, Aging, Social Psychology, Social Philosophy, Religion, Gender Roles, International Development, and other fields. Jim's expertise was so impressive in so many areas that it is difficult to single out only a few of them. However, in Sociology, he may be best remembered for his research on social inequality, his work on the social significance of sport, and his studies comparing Canada with other countries. Jim was especially well known for his cross-national studies of voluntary association activity. Recently, an anonymous reviewer described Jim Curtis as "the foremost researcher in the world" on this subject, the person who "largely pioneered" it, and the scholar whose publications represent "the gold standard" in the area. I would only add that much the same assessment could be applied to Jim's achievements in his other major research specialties.

Another one of Jim's rare and perhaps unique qualities was his capacity not only to master a diversity of topic areas, but also to work successfully with co-authors of quite different academic backgrounds, research traditions, and personalities. In addition, Jim's collaborative research connected him not only to distinguished scholars already well established in the social sciences, but also to an array of former and current students. My rough count is that more than thirty of his students co-authored articles or book chapters with Jim, and they usually did so numerous times. It is difficult to think of anyone else in Canadian Sociology or elsewhere who has established such a record. The same can be said for Jim's efforts in supervising young social scientists. He was an advisor or committee member on close to 150 graduate theses, or more than four each year for every year of his academic career. Clearly, here was a man who gave generously of himself, and...