Professor Adelino Torres left us on the 4th March. A true cornerstone of the building that is ISEG, Adelino Torres was a professor and researcher at our School from 1976 to 2009, when he retired as full professor of Economics. With a degree and Masters in Sociology from the University of Paris-Sorbonne, he was supervised by Georges Balandier, a professor and leading intellectual at that university and proponent of a new vision of African studies, an area of research and teaching so dear to Adelino Torres. Later on, he studied for a PhD in Economics at ISEG/UTL under Francisco Pereira de Moura, an unforgettable figure at our school. He held various positions in management bodies during his time as a professor, such as Chair of the Pedagogical Council and Head of the Department of Economics. He was a great enthusiast and promoter of Development Studies and African Studies in particular. In this vein, he was the Coordinator of the Master in Development and International Cooperation and was one of those responsible for its creation. His published work is vast and includes ten books. The Portuguese Empire between the Real and the Imaginary (1991) or African Development Horizons on the Threshold of the 21st Century (1999), dozens of articles in national and foreign academic journals, book chapters or even a visiting professor in Portugal and abroad, with numerous participations in conferences, colloquia and seminars. The supervision of a large number of master' and PhD dissertations and theses completes his dedication to our School and the Academy. The recognition of his scientific rigour and his human qualities justified important institutional invitations, such as, for example, being a delegate of the ESF - European Science Foundation in Portugal, or a member of the International Academy of Portuguese Culture. However, Adelino Torres was not only an excellent professor and researcher, he has a vast poetic oeuvre comprising seven books, the latest of which dates from 2014. However, this verve had its beginnings at the end of the 1950s in Luanda, then a colony of Portugal, and materialized in the publication of a collective work in 1961. Imbued with a nationalist and anti-colonial spirit, he attracted the attention of the then political police, PIDE. Shortly afterwards, this resistance forced him to flee to Algeria, where he stayed for a few years before settling in France and beginning what would become his academic career.
In this painful farewell to Adelino Torres, a farewell he describes in one of his poems (Here lies someone / who would rather not have gone / who proves to the most stubborn / that will alone is not enough), one cannot fail to highlight his brilliant side as a pedagogue, which was embodied in one of his favorite phrases: "Without students, my existence is unjustified". His generosity towards them was immeasurable. Endowed with enormous curiosity and scientific acumen, he was hardly content with simplistic explanations (as he writes in a poem Understanding/is not a way of knowing/but a way of being) and this led him to instill in his students and encourage them to read philosophy of knowledge, in particular the critical rationalism so dear to Popper, Kuhn and Lakatos. He left unpublished works on philosophy and, in particular, African philosophy, one of his last passions.
Tutondele (thank you) Adelino Torres.
Manuel Ennes Ferreira
Professor at ISEG
Information on funeral ceremonies:
- Sunday (March 10), from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.: Funeral in the Mortuary Chapel of the Church of Parede
- Monday (March 11), from 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.: Tribute in the Mortuary Chapel of the Church of Parede
- Monday (11th March), 16.00: Rio de Mouro Crematorium, Sintra
