This is a page for my students. As you develop a self-concept of who you are, and as you examine your motivations and values, it is worthwhile to consider who has influenced you. Our friends and family are the greatest influences on all of us, but our minds are also touched by mentors we encounter, both the teachers we interact with and authors of books or essays or poems or stories that influence our worldviews. We each could probably produce a list of historical figures from whom we have taken inspiration, or authors whose ideas strongly shaped our thinking. I have done that here. This is a list of modern persons who have done the most to shape my way of understanding the world. Some of these are teachers or friends I have encountered, but more are authors or significant historical figures whose ideas and insights have informed and shaped my own values and thinking. I invite you to make your own list like this, and certainly I welcome you to explore these persons I have listed here, as each and every one one of them has (I think) important insights worth taking from their lives or works.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
Mirza Husain-Ali Nuri (Baha’u’llah) (1817-1892)
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913)
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)
William James (1842-1910)
Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921)
Abbas Effendi (‘Abdu’l-Baha) (1844-1921)
Mirza Abu’l-Fadl-i-Gulpaygani (1844-1914)
Annie Besant (1847-1933)
Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)
Jane Addams (1860-1935)
Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948)
Henry A. Wallace (1888-1965)
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975)
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973)
Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986)
R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983)
Shoghi Effendi (1897-1957)
Rene Dubois (1901-1982)
Gregory Bateson (1904-1980)
Loren Eiseley (1907-1977)
Jacques Cousteau (1911-1997)
Arne Naess (1912-2009)
Lewis Thomas (1913-1993)
Barry Commoner (1917-2012)
Raymond F. Dasmann (1919-2002)
John Anderson (1922-2017). I once shook his hand and had a brief conversation with him. He made a good impression.
Wilhelm Knabe (b. 1923-2021)
Idries Shah (1924-1996)
Robert Jay Lifton (b. 1926). I’ve spent hours with him as a host when he came to the University of Illinois as a guest speaker. He is amazing.
Jürgen Habermas (b. 1929)
Arnold Heidenheimer (1929-2001) One of my mentors in graduate school. On my dissertation committee.
Stanislav Groff (b. 1931)
Neil Postman (1931-2003)
Roger Penrose (b. 1931)
Carl Sagan (1934-1996)
Jane Goodall (b. 1934) I have attended two lectures she has given, and met he after one and spoke with her briefly. She is an amazing human being.
Martha Ozawa (1934-2016) A mentor in graduate school.
Gar Alperovitz (b. 1936). I had dinner with him once; he is remarkable.
Peter Berg (1937-2011)
Fritjof Capra (b. 1939)
Richard Dawkins (b. 1941)
Arlene Stiffman (b. 1941) One of my mentors in graduate school. On my dissertation committee.
Kevin O’Neill (b. 1941) My undergraduate advisor and mentor.
Terrence Malick (b. 1943)
Richard Leakey (b. 1944) I went to a lecture he gave and spoke with him afterwards. He was one of the most impressive speakers I’ve ever met.
Robert Reich (b. 1946)
Larry Davis (b. 1946) One of my mentors in graduate school. On my dissertation committee.
Anthony A. Lee (b. 1947)
Michael Sherraden (b. 1948) One of my mentors in graduate school.
Dean Radin (b. 1952)
Juan Cole (b. 1952) We have corresponded by e-mail and in internet forums.
Steven Pinker (b. 1954) I once met him and had a brief conversation with him. He has a lot of confidence.
Steve Scholl (b. 1954) I corresponded with him sometimes in internet forums in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Donald D. Hoffman (b. 1955)
Mark Rank (b. 1956) A mentor in graduate school.
Sen McGlinn (b. 1956) We have corresponded by e-mail and in internet forums.
Gaudam Yadama (b. 1961) A mentor in graduate school.
Other modern and contemporary influences on my world-view and thinking would include: Saul Alinsky, Dean Baker, Michael H. Bond, James Burke, James Fallows, Paulo Freire, Stephen Friberg, Conor Friedersdorf, Carl Jung, Bernardo Kastrup, C. S. Lewis, John McWhorter, Carl Sandburg, Siegfried Sassoon, Thorstein Veblen, and Walt Whitman.