Reflecting on Peter the teacher

Describing people you care about can be a difficult business. This is just a fragment of a complex prism: a student reflecting on his teacher. Thankfully, Peter has provided a model I can follow in his memoir of his friendship with Zygmunt Bauman, Intimacy in Postmodern Times (Beilharz, 2020). Thirty years separate Peter and Zygmunt, another 30 separate myself and Peter. These are generational spans, time enough for considerable changes that challenge traditions. Through my story, I would like to suggest that the refounding of intellectual traditions on friendship, instead of, and sometimes in spite of institutions, or enframed goals such as politics, is one of Peter’s gifts to his postmodern students and those who have met him along the way. Another is the vital question for scholarly endeavour: ‘Is it interesting?’ And for me, the love of books.

© The Author(s), 2023.