Last March 6, the University of Minho hosted the final lecture of Moisés de Lemos Martins. The final lecture of the founder and former director of the CECS was entitled “The themes of my academic life – always rehearsing some fragment of the biography” and was attended by Rui Vieira de Castro, Rector of the University of Minho, Paula Remoaldo, President of the Institute of Social Sciences, Felisbela Lopes, representing the Department of Communication Sciences and the CECS, and Jean Martin Rabot, Professor of the Department of Sociology.
Rui Vieira de Castro started by referring that the Final Lecture of Moisés Martins “marks a turning point”; it is “a moment of recognition by the University and its community for what he gave us and what he gave to his Institute throughout this long and fruitful academic path”. He also reinforced that “his participation in academic societies, scientific events that repeatedly took place, nationally and internationally, gave decisive contributions so that, when we speak today about Communication Sciences in Portugal, Professor Moisés Martins is an unavoidable name”.
ICS President, Paula Remoaldo, highlighted the active role of Moisés de Lemos Martins, stating that the honoured professor “chose to dedicate his time to intervention, to construction, to belief and fighting, choosing a peculiar posture often of liberation from the existing status quo”. “His time was one of great dedication to teaching and research, as well as to opening up the farthest territories of Lusophony,” he added.
Representing the Department of Communication Sciences and the Communication and Society Research Centre, Felisbela Lopes left two words for the retired professor: “gratitude and legacy”. “Today, before everyone, we want to say publicly: thank you. For the time you gave to this university, for the enormous dedication you always showed in everything you did, for the edifying spirit, for the boldness in risking, for the will to make things happen and for creating conditions for them to be done, for the courage to say, to question and, many times, to contest and contradict, for the capacity to constitute us as a group”, the Director of the Department of Communication Sciences stated. About his legacy, Felisbela Lopes assured that the members of the Department and the Centre would keep “witnessing every day your heritage in the teaching projects we aim for quality, in the research we aim for reference and in the group spirit we intend to make us more cohesive, more motivated, more restless”.
Moved by emotion after his final lecture entitled “The themes of my academic life – always rehearsing some fragment of the biography”, Moisés de Lemos Martins left a message to all the present: “The shell that I carry on my back, like a snail, the shell that I inhabit, is therefore made of all of you”. He explained: “You are the brightness in my eyes, the promise, and the hope that constitutes me. In being inhabited by you, I have become what I am. Because this is the reality, I have been built with the dreams I have had of you, dreams that have always inhabited me throughout my life”.
In his final lecture, Moisés de Lemos Martins recalled several themes and authors who have marked his academic career. Maffesoli, Heidegger, Goffman, O’Neill, Foucault, and many other authors were referenced by the retired professor who glanced through those he considers his main publications: O Olho de Deus no Discurso Salazarista, Para uma Inversa Navegação – O discurso da Identidade, Pensar Portugal – A Modernidade de um País Antigo, A linguagem, a Verdade e o Poder – Ensaio de Semiótica Social, Crise no Castelo da Cultura – Das Estrelas para os Ecrãs, among many other books. No less important in his academic career are projects such as the Virtual Museum of Lusophony and the scientific journals Comunicação e Sociedade, Vista and Revista Lusófona de Estudos Culturais.
The event was broadcast live and is now available on ICS YouTube.
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