Dr. Joan Valerie Bondurant

Dr. Joan Valerie Bondurant In loving memory of Joan Valerie Bondurant of Great Bend, Kansas, whose parents were Price and Minnie Bondurant and whose brother was Keith P Bondurant. Each of them preceded her in death. Joan was 87 years old when she died, peacefully in her sleep, at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tucson, Arizona on September 12, 2006. On behalf of Dr. Joan Bondurant's friends, relatives, colleagues and students, we celebrate her extraordinary achievements and friendship. She was a woman of great courage, superior intellect and profound compassion. One could have had no better, no more faithful, nor generous friend than she. Joan was a humble scholar who loved learning, teaching and advising doctoral students. In retirement, she basked in the sunlight and beauty of Arizona and took great delight in the company of her cats, who comforted her at home in her last days. She was tenderly cared for by her friend and colleague, Edna C. Cardish, Ph.D., who resided with her for 19 years. Her wish after death was that she provide help for homeless, hurt and neglected felines. To help fulfill this wish, donations can be made to the Hermitage, a no-kill cat shelter at P.O. Box 13508 in Tucson, AZ 85732. Having been a woman of great foresight, she had written her own obituary many years ago; it reads as follows: During World War II, Joan Bondurant served the Office of Strategic Services as Research Analyst in India, where she met Mahatma Gandhi and began her intensive study of Gandhi and his Satyagraha movement calling for non-violent defiance of the government. During her four years of field research, she was witness to Gandhi's successful leadership in India's struggle for independence. In New Delhi she saw the effectiveness of Gandhi's principles first hand, when disciples of Satyagraha peacefully put an end to street riots between Muslims and Sikhs over the partition of India. Dr. Bondurant's work came to the attention of India's foremost leaders, including Prime Minister Jawaharial Nehru, who wrote the forward to Dr. Bondurant's influential book, Conquest of Violence; The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict, a classic in its field. In 1948 Dr. Bondurant returned to the United States and attended the University of California, Berkeley, where, in 1952 she received Ph.D. in Political Science. Upon graduation she joined the faculty at Berkeley, where she also served as Research Political Scientist, Institute of International Studies until 1970. Dr. Bundurant has written extensively in the field of conflict and conflict resolution, as well as on the government and politics of India. She edited Conflict: Violence and non-Violence for Atherton Press, and wrote the introduction to the 19-volume edition of Harijan, Gandhi's weekly journal covering the movement for Indian independence. From 1970-73 Dr. Bondurant was Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of the Pacific, in Stockton, California. Dr. Bondurant retired to Tucson, Arizona.