From The Daily Cal
‘Incredibly vibrant’: UC Berkeley linguist Geoffrey Nunberg dies at 75
By Veronica Roseborough
Far-reaching NPR linguist and adjunct UC Berkeley professor Geoffrey Nunberg died Aug. 11 at the age of 75.
To many, Nunberg was a rare type of person who found joy in listening to others and exploring connections between language and politics. To his daughter, Sophie Nunberg, he was a clog-wearing father who gave her “embarrassment tickets” for doing chores and who later inspired her to pursue language and writing...
This fascination with countless facets of knowledge was one of the reasons he decided to become an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Information, according to his sister, Barbara Nunberg. Geoffrey co-taught alongside Paul Duguid, who recommended him for the position after working as his colleague at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center.
“For me, and I hope for him too, it was very engaging,” Duguid said. “Information, as he would always say, is something of a nebulous subject, but we were able to try to give it shape, working back and forth together.”
As a faculty member at the I School, Nunberg co-taught two courses every spring with Paul Duguid, his colleague and friend: an undergraduate course, “History of Information,” and a graduate course, “Concepts of Information.”
