Honouring George Ritzer: Reading Ritzer and developing as an interdisciplinary semiotician

This Festschrift text presents my experiences with George Ritzer's writings, mainly regarding how they ‘mentored’ and influenced my own relationship to sociology and wider academics. I demonstrate this impact by discussing the influence of Ritzer's texts on my personal development as a student. I also examine some of the sociologist's key concepts and their paramount position within my PhD work on McDonaldization, enchantment, animals and semiotics; his work helped guide my research, which is essentially a synthesis of the sociologist's and zoosemiotic theory. Lastly, the text brings attention to the importance of Ritzer's writings being relatable, critical and an important means to understanding contemporary societies.