Timothy Wickham-Crowley

Tim was a simple and generous soul at heart, sweet natured and alive to the wonders of this world and its people on so many levels. He reveled in cooking the many cuisines he and Kelley discovered over the years and treasured the many students and friends from across the country and the world who came into his life and enriched it so. He loved language and all its potential in puns, poetry and wordplay, and often stopped in mid-walk to gesture widely at a landscape and say, “Look at that—isn’t it beautiful?” His appreciation for and joy in the world around him never left. Despite many travels over forty years of marriage, he regretted at the last that he could not see more of what we have made of this world.

Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Tim grew up in a city of immigrants and kept in touch with schoolmates even from grade school. Many of them met for brunch a couple of times a year pre-Covid, and on Zoom after that, expanding his reunions with old friends. He earned a scholarship to Princeton due to his early promise as a scholar and student, but with his enduring humor, used to puncture the “preppiness” of many classmates by yelling across the quad to other working class friends, “hey Joe, I prepped at PS 105, where’d you prep?” At Cornell for graduate school, his choice of sociology led him to look at those who fought for recognition and justice, studying Latin American revolutions and development.

His intense love of music led him to join the Catholic community’s choir and a madrigals group founded by his then-future wife Kelley, one of the many things that led them to realize what they shared. Married in 1981, they lived their first two years together in Durham, England, where Tim followed Kelley while she completed a graduate archaeology degree, and then returned to Ithaca as Tim taught several one-year stints at Hamilton College and the University of Rochester before taking a tenure line post at Georgetown University. His career there lasted 34 years, during which he shared his erudition, tough critical stances and encouragement with students and colleagues in Sociology and in Latin American Studies.

Over the years, Tim shared his esoteric pop culture references, love of movies, and immense knowledge of trivia. Early on, he learned to play golf and gamely joined a foursome of family members who were far more gifted at the sport than he, never letting it stop him from having fun. He took up cross-stitching for a while and finished several projects for family, including a southwest wedding vase piece for his 15th anniversary and a Merry Chrismoose pillow for his father. He regularly visited the zoo back then when time allowed, having an abiding love for all creatures. Even in his final illness, watching nature programs and animal shows warmed his heart, and both those and cooking shows, notably Somebody Feed Phil, let him travel a bit in his imagination. He continued to read widely throughout his life, loving comics and Conan the Barbarian, Mad Magazine, the Dresden Files magician detective series, historical mysteries, Ogden Nash, Garrison Keillor’s collection Good Poems, Sherlock Holmes, P.G. Wodehouse, books of insults in assorted languages, weighty tomes on Cuba or Latin America and issues of current concern such as voting rights and racial justice, or just books of collected trivia on any topic imaginable. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings held particular meaning for him and Kelley, and he had begun rereading Harry Potter in his final weeks.

Anyone knowing Tim knows how he loved to talk, how easily he engaged with new people. His jokes were legion, his laugh one of the signature sounds friends associated with his personality. Chuck Jones and his character Wile E. Coyote numbered among his heroes. We will miss that laugh especially, and his infectious humor, his grace, and above all his gentleness. Rest in peace, dear one.

A visitation for Timothy will be held Friday, November 5, 2021 from 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM at National Funeral Home, 7482 Lee Highway, Falls Church, VA 22042. A funeral service will occur Friday, November 5, 2021 from 1:30 PM to 3:00 PM, 7482 Lee Highway, Falls Church, VA 22042. A graveside service will occur Friday, November 5, 2021 from 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM at National Memorial Park, 7482 Lee Highway, Falls Church, VA 22042.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.NationalFH-MP.com for the Wickham-Crowley family.

It is with heavy hearts that the Sociology Faculty and the Georgetown community mourn the loss of Associate Professor, Timothy Wickham-Crowley, who passed away on October 29, 2021.

Professor Wickham-Crowley earned a bachelor's degree at Princeton (A.B. magna cum laude, 1973) and an M.A. and Ph.D.from Cornell (1982). He taught at Georgetown from 1986 to 2020 where he was Associate Professor of Sociology. He chaired that department from 2011 to 2016. From 2002 to 2007 he served as the M.A. Program Director for Latin American Studies. In the past 34 years he has taught a broad range of courses, including: Introduction to Sociology, Political Sociology, Sociological Theory, Religion, Revolution, Latin American Societies, States and Societies in Latin America, Brazilian Society, Population Dynamics, Social Inequality, Social Movements, Comparative Sociology, The Sociology of Science, and Race, Color & Culture (an Ignatius Seminar).

Professor Wickham-Crowley was an acclaimed teacher. In 1991, he was nominated by Georgetown students and selected to become an honorary faculty member of Alpha Sigma Nu, the National Jesuit Honor Society. He was twice nominated by SFS seniors for teaching awards. In 2008 he received from the College of Arts and Sciences the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching. He served as Program Chair of the Latin American Studies Association's (LASA) 21st International Congress (1998). Later he served a three-year term on LASA's Executive Council, and was nominated to run for Vice-President (thereafter President) of LASA in 2012.

Professor Wickham-Crowley was also an excellent scholar. His research interests included Latin American guerrilla movements and social revolutions, and development and underdevelopment in the Americas since 1500. He is the author of more than a dozen articles and chapters on guerrilla movements and revolution. The articles have appeared in journals such as Social Forces, Comparative Studies in Society and History (twice), Social Science History, Politics and Society, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, Political Power and Social Theory, Theory and Society,Latin American Research Review, and (in translation) in Revue Internationale de Politique Comparée, and América Latina Hoy. His chapter contributions or reprints have been sought out by scholars such as Susan Eckstein, Jack Goldstone, John Foran, Mark Katz, Miguel Centeno, and Paul Almeida. Several of his articles or book-segments have been reprinted in English or Spanish in collected writings on revolution.

In addition, he was a contributor and member of the editorial board for The Encyclopedia of Political Revolutions (Congressional Quarterly, 1998), among other encyclopedia entries he has written. For three issues he also contributed the essays and reviews on "Central America--Sociology" for the Handbook of Latin American Studies (nos. 57, 59, 61). He has authored two monographs, Exploring Revolution: Essays on Latin American Insurgency and Revolutionary Theory (M. E. Sharpe, 1991), and Guerrillas and Revolution in Latin America: A Comparative Study of Insurgents and Regimes since 1956 (Princeton University Press, 1992). The latter book was nominated both for the Bryce Wood Award (for best book) given by LASA and for the Distinguished Publication Award of the American Sociological Association.

Associate Professor Timothy Wickham-Crowley will be deeply missed by his colleagues, students, and the Georgetown community. We at Georgetown were enriched by his presence.