Ned Keenan [from William Hill]

Subject: Ned Keenan
Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2015
From: William Hill <williamhhill@gmail.com>

Thank you very much for including the sad news of Ned Keenan’s passing
in JRL #51. I had not heard and appreciated reading the tribute to him.
Ned was my tutor and thesis advisor my senior year at Harvard. Although
he completed the requirements for his doctorate a bit earlier, he
formally received the PhD at the same ceremony I received by BA. I
remained in touch with his work through a couple of his graduate
students, one of whom was in Leningrad with me on the IREX exchange. I
still use his piece on Muscovite political folkways to help instruct USG
students on Russian political culture.

The article on Ned and the next one on the Russian Research Center bring
back many memories. I am old enough to have been at Harvard and to
remember when the RRC moved from buildings about to be torn down on
Dunster Street to a “fine new building” on Cambridge Street!
Much water under the bridge since then. The members and alumni of the
RRC have made a truly incalculable contribution over the years to
Russian studies in this country and around the world, not the least of
which from and with the help of Ned Keenan. My thanks again for leading
with the tribute to his memory.