Abstract
When Editor-in-Chief of Anatolia, Metin Kozak, asked me in early 2013 to write a portrait of Erik Cohen, who is the George S. Wise Professor of Sociology (emeritus) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the most recent winner of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) Ulysses Prize for Excellence in the Creation and Dissemination of Knowledge, I was attracted to the idea, but also rather hesitant. I hesitated because I worried over giving a just picture of a foundational scholar who had contributed to building the field of tourism studies for more than 40 years and who showed no signs of slowing down the pace or magnitude of his contributions, despite now being more than 80 years old. My first ever communication with Erik was only in late 2010, and during the two plus years I had corresponded with him, I had quickly come to know his meticulousness in his scholarship and in his attention to the social world.