TOUR LECTURERS
Dr. Laurence Michalak
Dr. Laurence Michalak is a cultural anthropologist and specialist in North Africa and Europe, originally from Woodland, California. After a B.A. at Stanford (1964), Larry was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tunisia, did an M.A. at the University of London (1970) and finished his Ph.D. at UC Berkeley in 1983. At Cal he taught Middle Eastern Studies and was Vice Chair of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies for 23 years, retiring in 2002. He speaks fluent Arabic and French, good Spanish and fair German, and has traveled and done research in Europe, Asia and Latin America. He has taught the anthropology of food, tourism, migration, globalization, and problems of economic
development. He is the author of books on social legislation and labor migration and is currently working on a book on informal commerce. Larry has been a home winemaker since 1975 and has won numerous gold medals at the Sonoma Harvest Fair, as well as the Sweepstakes Award for Best Amateur White Wine. He been lecturing and hosting Cal Discoveries trips for over twenty years, usually accompanied by his wife, Dr. Karen Trocki.
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