The original description of the first prompt has mysteriously disappeared, but if memory serves, what I’m responding to is option B, which asked us to explain Lieberman via a Gaipa-style cartoon.

I can’t remember now whether the prompt required that we explain the rationale for our cartoons in words, but in case I need to do so, here’s the explanation: Lieberman comes across to me as a guy who, for better or worse, embodies the thing he’s writing about. He’s clearly a people person with a desire for human connection, and as such is much more sanguine about the inherent value and rightness of human sociableness than a misanthropic introvert like myself could be. He works often with his wife Naomi Eisenberger and constantly cites the work of their mutual grad students; if you Google her lab at UCLA, the pictures and descriptions make the lab seem like a family.

Predictably for someone of this disposition, Lieberman tends toward the friendlier, more ingratiating Gaipa strategies. He’s too established to need to ass-kiss, but he favors piggybacking and leapfrogging in relation to other scholars as opposed to alienating them in any way, and seems to especially relish peacemaking, as when he reconciles the contradictory findings of colleagues all of whom he appears to respect (and whom he needs to stay on good terms with professionally). I very often noticed him doing something vis à vis his grad students that wasn’t as straightforward as simple piggybacking: he made use of their work, but in a context that also served to promote and legitimize it. I called this “piggybacking while boosting” in the cartoon.

I tried to save this PDF at a readable size ratio and horizontal orientation, but who knows if it will actually open that way. If it doesn’t, try right-clicking – there should be an option to rotate the orientation.

Lieberman illustrated a la Gaipa