Umberto Eco was not only a great thinker and a fascinating author. He was also an inspiring teacher.

I had the privilege of attending Umberto Eco’s lecture series in the early 1980s when he taught at Yale University. It was exhilarating. He was a serious semiotician who analysed James Bond and James Joyce with the same combination of brilliance and humour. He started to talk about Jorge Luis Borges and moved seamlessly to Sherlock Holmes. He approached popular and high culture with the same set of intellectual tools and the same sense of wonder.

He taught us two things. First, do not give your brains a leave of absence when you listen to popular music, watch a hockey game or see a block buster movie. Intellectual curiosity is what makes life worth living. Second, as entertaining as popular culture can be the classics can be even more entertaining.

Umberto Eco left an idelible impression on on all of his students. We miss him.