1. Todd Alan Gitlin was an American sociologist, political activist and writer, novelist, and cultural commentator.
21 Facts About Todd Gitlin
1. 2.
Todd Gitlin wrote about the mass media, politics, intellectual life, and the arts for both popular and scholarly publications.
3.
Todd Alan Gitlin was born on January 6,1943, in Manhattan and raised in the Bronx, the son of Dorothy, who taught typing and stenography, and Max Gitlin, who taught high school history.
4.
Todd Gitlin graduated as valedictorian from the Bronx High School of Science at the age of 16.
5.
Todd Gitlin was married three times: his first two marriages, to activist and lawyer Nancy Hollander and to Carol Wolman, ended in divorce, and his third, to Laurel Ann Cook, lasted from 1995 until his death.
6.
On December 31,2021, Gitlin went into cardiac arrest at his home in Hillsdale and was hospitalized in nearby Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where he contracted COVID-19.
7.
Todd Gitlin died on February 5,2022, at the age of 79.
8.
Todd Gitlin became a political activist in 1960, when he joined a Harvard undergraduate group called Tocsin, against nuclear weapons.
9.
Todd Gitlin went on to become vice-chairman and then chairman of the group.
10.
In 1963 and 1964, Todd Gitlin was president of Students for a Democratic Society.
11.
Todd Gitlin actively opposed both the Gulf War of 1991 and the Iraq War of 2003.
12.
Todd Gitlin vocally supported both the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and the occupation of Afghanistan in 2002.
13.
Todd Gitlin was active in a Columbia faculty group supporting such divestment.
14.
Todd Gitlin actively opposed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeted at Israel.
15.
Todd Gitlin has been a resident at the Bellagio Study Center in Italy and the Djerassi Foundation in Woodside, California, a fellow at the Media Studies Center, and a visiting professor at Yale University, the University of Oslo, and the University of Toronto.
16.
Todd Gitlin wrote 16 books and hundreds of articles in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Haaretz, Columbia Journalism Review, Tablet, The New Republic, Mother Jones, Salon, and many more.
17.
Todd Gitlin was a columnist for The San Francisco Examiner and the New York Observer, and a frequent contributor to TPMcafe and The New Republic online as well as the Chronicle of Higher Education.
18.
Todd Gitlin was co-chair of the San Francisco branch of PEN American Center, a member of the board of directors of Greenpeace, and an early editor of openDemocracy.
19.
Todd Gitlin gave hundreds of lectures at public occasions and universities in many countries.
20.
Todd Gitlin was the first sociologist to apply Erving Goffman's concept of "frame" to news analysis, and to show Antonio Gramsci's "hegemony" at work in a detailed analysis of intellectual production.
21.
Todd Gitlin published three novels: The Murder of Albert Einstein, Sacrifice, and Undying.