Volume 29 - Number 3 - Spring 2023
Pages: 257 - 389
Damião de Medeiros, P. (2023). My inspiring mentor. In M. I. West, P. H. Elovitz, & N. D’Andria (Eds.), Lawrence Jacob Friedman Festschrift. Clio’s Psyche, 29(3), 326-327.
My Inspiring Mentor
Intro
One of my first encounters with Larry Friedman was in 2011 at the Harvard Public Intellectuals Annual Conference. From then on, this great and widely renowned scholar has become my dearest friend and mentor. I feel great admiration for his informal and humble way of being. As a humanitarian, he encourages everyone around him to freely discuss their own thoughts. For him, human dignity and respect must be at the center of any academic discussion. These values he upholds have brought us together, either by organizing conferences (Lisbon and Azores) or guiding us along the hard and sometimes painful process of writing. His original way of framing questions has challenged me, and his deeply knowledgeable method of deconstructing complex matters has helped me learn to interrogate myself, my intellectual commitments, and the world around me.
academic discussion, deconstructing complex matters, festschrift, Harvard Public Intellectuals Annual Conference, human dignity, humanitarian, humble individual, intellectual, Lawrence J. Friedman, mentorship, psychohistory, writing process
One of my first encounters with Larry Friedman was in 2011 at the Harvard Public Intellectuals Annual Conference. From then on, this great and widely renowned scholar has become my dearest friend and mentor. I feel great admiration for his informal and humble way of being. As a humanitarian, he encourages everyone around him to freely discuss their own thoughts. For him, human dignity and respect must be at the center of any academic discussion. These values he upholds have brought us together, either by organizing conferences (Lisbon and Azores) or guiding us along the hard and sometimes painful process of writing. His original way of framing questions has challenged me, and his deeply knowledgeable method of deconstructing complex matters has helped me learn to interrogate myself, my intellectual commitments, and the world around me.
I feel grateful for:
-The time he visited me and brought E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web for my eldest daughter
-Being the one chosen to throw his 80th birthday party online
-The times when he shares jokes with me and talks about the important things in both our lives
-Being pushed to another level of critical interrogation during our joint writing process
-His mentoring and especially his genuine friendship.
May all readers enjoy this Festschrift! Also to you, Larry, congratulations! What a great writing festa.
Page 326
How to cite this article
Damião de Medeiros, P. (2023). My inspiring mentor. In M. I. West, P. H. Elovitz, & N. D’Andria (Eds.), Lawrence Jacob Friedman Festschrift. Clio’s Psyche, 29(3), 326-327.
