In Memoriam: Paula Joan Caplan, 1947-2021

Paula J. Caplan, a noted psychologist and feminist scholar, died in late July. She was 74 years old and suffered from metastatic melanoma.

A native of Springfield, Missouri, Professor Caplan was a graduate of Radcliffe College of Harvard University. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in psychology from Duke University in Durham North Carolina.

After completing her education and the birth of her two children, Dr. Caplan served as a professor of psychology and an assistant professor of psychiatry and lecturer in women’s studies at the University of Toronto between 1979 and 1995. She went on to teach at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Brown University, the University of Rhode Island, Connecticut College, American University, and Harvard University. At Harvard, Dr. Caplan was an associate at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research and was a fellow in the Women and Public Policy Program at the Kennedy School of Government. She also lectured in Harvard’s program on women, gender, and sexuality and in the psychology department.

Dr. Caplan was the author of 12 books in including When Johnny and Jane Come Marching Home: How All of Us Can Help Veterans (MIT Press, 2011) and Don’t Blame Mother: Mending the Mother-Daughter Relationship (HarperCollins 1989). She also wrote several plays and directed two films.