John Manuel Monteiro (1956-2013): um legado inestimável para a Historiografia

Abstract

Perplexity, sadness, and awareness of the immense and incalculable loss were the feelings which took hold of the national and international academic community on the morning of 27 March 2013, when we awoke with the impact of the news that our ranks would never again count on the valuable and priceless collaboration of John Manuel Monteiro. A much admired, beloved, and competent professor, supervisor, researcher administrator, colleague, and friend, John left us in the golden moment of his rich and fruitful intellectual and personal trajectory. Numerous academic and administrative projects were suddenly interrupted, leaving colleagues, supervisees, and students sad and stunned by the challenge of continuing without being able to count on the person who had always known, with tranquility and security, how to point out the right directions. Like all good leaders, John delegated functions, discovered talents, and encouraged the work of students and colleagues, bringing them in to his numerous projects. He was a great builder of teams and work groups. For this reason his work will continue. The many seeds he sowed have already produced fruit and will continue to produce much more. This is evident in the field of indigenous history, which under the striking influence of John Monteiro has been significantly renewed since the 1990s, using historical and anthropological approaches which allow new understandings of the place of Indians in our history. The irrelevant role to which historians had for so long assigned Indians could not be sustained in light of the numerous works in the interdisciplinary research line John encouraged, which revealed new realities about the Indians in their contacts in colonial and post-colonial societies. The academic trajectory of John MonteiroRevista Brasileira de História. São Paulo, v. 33, nº 65, p.