This site exists to preserve the teachings of Dr. Rick Roderick. The lectures are transcribed, annotated and accompanied by embedded youtube videos and download links.
Rick Roderick Interviewed by Anne Buttimer (1987)
About Rick Roderick
Rick Roderick was born in Abilene, Texas on June 16, 1949, and received his bachelor’s degree at University of Texas, Austin, Texas. He did post-graduate work at Baylor University, and earned his Ph. D. at University of Texas, Austin, Texas. From 1977 to 1978, he was the editor of the Baylor Philosophy Journal, and from 1977 to 1979 he was a member of the Phi Sigma Tau National Honor Society of Philosophy. He was the recipient of the Oldright Fellowship at the University of Texas and served as associate editor to The Pawn Review, and Current Perspectives in Social Theory. He was the undergraduate director of the Duke Marxism and Society Program. He is the author of the book Habermas and the Foundation of Critical Theory (1986), as well as numerous articles in professional journals. He has presented over 24 papers, and published 13 reviews and literary criticisms. From 1977 to 1993, he taught Philosophy, first at Baylor, then University of Texas and then at Duke University.
His areas of specialization were Marx and Marxism, Social and Political philosophy, Critical Theory (Habermas and the Frankfurt School), 19th Century Philosophy, and Contemporary Continental Philosophy. He also taught Ethics, Logic, History of Modern Philosophy, Aesthetics and Existentialism.
He was a four-time nominee for the Alumni Undergraduate Distinguished Professor Teaching Award and has been recognized by the Smithsonian Institute as the best teacher in his field. His “The Philosophy of Human Values” lecture series has been the best selling videotape in the history of academia. He has been published in five countries. His “Habermas and the Foundations of Critical Theory” is an internationally recognized standard in the field. His work has been studied and reviewed worldwide–India, China, Denmark, Germany, etc.
Rick was controversially denied tenure at Duke University in 1993. Very little is known about the circumstances or what happened next. He died on January 18, 2002 of congestive heart failure.
I hope you enjoy these lectures as much as I do… I have listened to them countless times. As the years go by they only become more poignant and eerily prophetic. Bear in mind that the internet and smart phones did not exist when these lectures were recorded.
Guidebook: Philosophy and Human Values (1990)
Lecture One: Socrates and the Life of Inquiry
Lecture Two: Epicureans, Stoics, Skeptics
Lecture Three: Kant and the Path to Enlightenment
Lecture Four: Mill on Liberty
Lecture Five: Hegel and Modern Life
Lecture Six: Nietzsche: Knowledge and Belief
Lecture Seven: Kierkegaard and the Contemporary Spirit
Lecture Eight: Philosophy and Postmodern Culture
Guidebook: Nietzsche and the Postmodern Condition (1991)
Lecture One: Nietzsche as Myth and Mythmaker
Lecture Two: Nietzsche on Truth and Lie
Lecture Three: Nietzsche as Master of Suspicion and Immoralist
Lecture Four: The Death of God
Lecture Five: The Eternal Recurrence
Lecture Six: The Will to Power
Lecture Seven: Nietzsche as Artist
Lecture Eight: Nietzsche’s Progeny
Guidebook: The Self Under Siege – Philosophy in the 20th Century (1993)
Lecture One: The Masters of Suspicion
Lecture Two: Heidegger and the Rejection of Humanism
Lecture Three: Sartre and the Roads to Freedom
Lecture Four: Marcuse and One-Dimensional Man
Lecture Five: Habermas and the Fragile Dignity of Humanity
Lecture Six: Foucault and the Disappearance of the Human
Lecture Seven: Derrida and the Ends of Man
Lecture Eight: Fatal Strategies
Thanks for setting up this site! It has been a terrific resource!
learning of Ricks death has not altered my enthusiasm for his work.He was soley responsible for ignighting a spark of interest in “modern”philosefers” that smoldered dormently until our casual encounter in 208 when Iwos looking for some material that explained nhielism a bit.
So if your xiber or hyper real , or even just plain old orinary real conscious spirit is out there ;Iwould like to join in with the many thousands who like me feel that they have found a creadible source of philosoficle and humourous informacion and say ThANQue Rick for the ride and youare so right” We are all gona dai”
Alfred
Artist!
update: this guy should really be promoted more widely by someone surviving ,close to him……..
While I certainly agree… Most of us are simply too busy leading our own lives. It may seem ironic, but my brothers and I can barely afford an education, and spend most of our time working for minimum wage or close to it. That kind of promotion isn’t easy, especially for a professor of philosophy…
I just heard your father’s lecture on Kant, and I was extremely impressed. I just thought I’d mention about the comment you made with respect to education. I’m low on funds myself, but there is now so much wonderful material online — like this site — that I’m finding I can get a first-rate one for free. Best of luck to you and your family.
After entertaining the idea of the hyper-real, I have been pondering, through my own procrastination and pessimism that I am creating a hyper-falsity or negative or illusion. I Believe the hyper illusion is the assumption of a certain condition and then further elaboration through the imagination that it is real. Thus a perpetuation of an illusion after its imagination and then into reality and ultimatley becoming my perception.
wow,i hav gone through some of his lectures, if hav find some remarkable pnts in it.althoug he is great guy what a thinking.
I considered a bumper sticker… Rick Roderick guides my life.. but nobody would know what that meant. i was half joking
I would!
i have been hooked on philosophy for a long time, roderick made it interesting again. thanks for producing the series. mac
love this guy! he is so honest, authentic, down-to-earth yet still very faithful to the authors’ ideas that he is discussing…i was somehow lucky enough to find his lectures and they were critical to my intellectual development…ive since started my own site to ensure the spirit of inquiry that Rick celebrated never dies in this great land of ours….if you’re interested its at http://www.greatestgoodforman.blogspot.com...
I dont visit this page as often as I should……always find kindred spirits flying all over the placce.
How about a “Rick Roderick Night” (as in “Burns Nights”) to celebrate this great and generous man s life and ..death. You texans should be gad-damd-praoud of this man.
I want to express my deep appreciation for the spirit and the passion through which Rick Roderick offered his in depth knowledge of those great, devoted and often tortured minds who went before him.I am learning so much and he is supporting me in my quest for meaning and purpose. I would very interested in being in touch with those who are committed in keeping his work available to those who may have arrived at the last and most important crystal!. Many thanks for creating this site and particularly to the individual who shared their blog . Bernadette from Northern Ireland
Guys, I have to deeply thank you for this website. It is just fantastic!
Please, keep it up.
Wow! I downloaded Ricks lectures a couple of years ago, and was immediately engaged. Great site, thanks a lot!
Great site, thank you so much.
I just wanted to say I came across this guy on Youtube recently searching for stuff about the Frankfurt School, and I think he’s fantastic, really inspiring. Thanks to whoever is responsible for the site. He makes me want to go and study at uni again.
I started becoming interested in this area a few years ago after watching some films by a wonderful filmmaker in my country. His name is Adam Curtis and his films are on Youtube and he has a blog on the BBC. Hopefully someone might get something out of watching his films, particularly The Trap.
All the best.
After listening to Rick’s lectures I actually looked him up to write him a letter. It in doing so that I sadly learned of his passing. It would have been quite something to actually have a conversation with the man.
So I’d like to leave this message perhaps to just let his family and friends know how much his challenging and witty thoughts and lectures were appreciated and enjoyed!
Thanks so much for your comments and thanks to whoever set up the site. I am Rick’s son. He was an amazing man and a hell of a father. I always wished that the world could hear what he had to say (beyond his classes), and it seems it’s happening now.
His death was sudden, unexpected, and really difficult to deal with still. He really had an impact on my life.
His ideas were evolving constantly, and I will always regret that he died so young.
Hey Marshall, I was really saddened to hear of the untimely passing of your dad Rick. Such a man can’t help but leave a massive hole in your life. You have my sincerest best wishes and empathy. Your dad seemed to me, to be one of the few people I have come across whose intellect was sharp as a razor, but who kept the easy human quality I think we all loved and respected about him. He wanted to inform, he genuinely wanted others to understand. And wasn’t so impressed by his self importance that he became an obstacle to this. A rare and deeply authentic kind of educator. I never met him face to face, and only know him through his work and his lectures. But his quality as a person, a natural person is unmistakable to me. I hope you and your family feel better in time.
Deepest Regards and best wishes David Smith.
Enter your comments here…Nothing that you wouldent have heard a thousand times and in a thousand vorieties of “angle”.
My one is that I was friends with your father long after his death.
All I wanted was a little breifing on Sart and on comes this guy ..from TEXUS! and grabbs me by the albert halls!
It was so engrosing,his WAY of presentaccion really blew mw away and I suppose contributed a lot to his carimatic success that he comined Raging Bull with the most refined eloquence next to /dare i say it (because i know he was a fan) Dylan. ……
there is a kind of Lapsus-emocional whend you feel that you have been dealing with someones ideas and conversacions for over a month-when you sadly descover that the cabron has died ..and not only that but 2 years ago-wierd-I insist you must get a lot af this..
So I wont go on..Pleased to make your aquaintence and my most sinceer,belated comiseraccions.
Hi Marshall,
I just wanted to let you know that your father Rick has been a big influence on me. I am a working class, uneducated person who has tried to open up their world. Rick’s lectures have helped me to conceptualize a lot of theory that was poorly written and i have used it to communicate my ideas to a lot of friends. I’m forever grateful for his work and want to thank him through you for his lucid style. He was a giant among men. As long as his talks are available online, he will always live in out hearts.
-Rick M
I am wondering how Rick Roderick’s sons are doing.
I listen to Rick’s lectures over and over. When I consider that he was denied tenure, it’s hard not to think Duke made a political decision. Someone there did not want him stealing their limelight. Rick was likely the prof most appreciated and honored by his students.
At any rate, I think of his sons after hearing each of his inspiring talks and so hope life is treating them well. I mourn his loss without having known him. How must it be for his children who lost such a treasure of a father far too early?
Hi Marshall,
Sending this message from the Netherlands.
I just wanted to share that I am very grateful that I have found your dad’s lecture series. He seems to be an amazing personality! He thought me a lot and I think his voice has been a wake-up call in some way.
I am thinking of sharing his lectures with my professors and have already shared it to some friends, so that more people can enjoy what he has left to the world.
All the very best.
Thank you for this is an amazing resource. I stumbled upon Mr. Roderick’s tapes years ago and enjoyed them immensely. After running a search on the net to find out more about him I came across this page and am very impressed by the resources available.
I’m sure he would be happy to know that his lectures can provide insight to so many people on these important topics. This page is a great service to students of philosophy.
Sincerely,
K
I am such a huge fan of these lectures. Professor Roderick was an incredible lecturer and thinker. He was able to explain and interpret complex texts in easy-to-understand ways. I wish I could have had the pleasure of sitting down with him and talking at length. If he would have only ate more soy beans and climbed the stair-master……………. jk In all seriousness, I consider his depth of analysis and ideals a wonderful guide to becoming a better and more educated person.
I’ve only watched a couple of the lectures and the extended interview so far but I’m very impressed with Rick and it takes a lot to impress me these days! He displays a lot of humility and really does seem to understand the issues he talks about, he has obviously tried very hard to apply much of what he learns to his own life and I respect that very much.
Also, the ‘Self Under Siege’ deals with many many complicated issues and I strongly believe that in the year 2010 when the limits of discourse and thought have become increasingly limited his dedicated work is invaluable in keeping the struggle for a better world alive.
I admire his positivity and also his self-awareness as illustrated in the interview where he acknowledged that his hope for the future was possibly an over-reaction to his identification with Adorno’s pessimism.
Thank you very much for making his work available, by doing so you have added another valuable dimension to the struggle for a more humane world where human beings can truly flourish.
Thank you so much for collecting these videos on one site. You´ve done a terrrific job whoever you are:)
Greetings from 29 year old norwegian serious amateur philosopher, who is more interested in the questions than the answers.
Thanx you so much for putting this up!! its soo splendidly awesome! =)
Thank you very much for setting up this site. I came across Rick’s lectures on youtube when I was trying to get my head around Derrida, and I was really impressed. A really interesting critical thinker who could communicate complex philosophical ideas in an accessible form, but without watering them down or shearing them of their controversial content. No surprise that he didn’t get on with the college authorities. I wonder what he’d make of the current wave of occupations and student activism. I imagine he’d be quite excited.
REQUEST FOR RICK’S WRITINGS
Does anyone have any of Rick Roderick’s writing? I am particularly looking for an article he wrote called ‘Reading Derrida Politically (contra Rorty)’, and it was published in Praxis International 4/1986 pp.442-449
If anyone can share it or knows where I can get hold of it or has access to that journal’s archive (through college or whatever) I would be most grateful.
Found a copy online! This link should go straight to the pdf download:
http://www.ceeol.com/aspx/getdocument.aspx?logid=5&id=c9f31e9c-bc04-46a5-9bdd-930202f892d9
If that doesn’t work here is the site I found the link through:
http://www.ceeol.com/aspx/issuedetails.aspx?issueid=0df02276-d937-4d6a-b4e2-5936fc01923e
May his work live on ! Thanks for putting this site up.
Rick Roderick gave me hope for our education system. His lectures have been a thus far endless source of inspiration and contemplation for me. I really hope that one day someone finds a way to bring the lectures he left behind to a mass audience.
To anyone who knew Professor Roderick – Did he ever mention whether he had read any Neil Postman? It’s one of the million things I’ve often wondered his opinion on, since they had many similar ideas and Postman’s books came out just before Rodericks TTC lectures. I can kind of see their similarities and divergences in their work, but I always wondered if he had ever mentioned or referenced Postman.
Thanx for the great site and I’m very happy to find guys like you! That really gives me some hope that the world can still be saved. I enjoyed Rick Rodericks’s videos a lot of times. It was a very nice plausible chain of the historical steps of the developement of human beings and philsophy, was it?
I’d like to add one thing to what he said about the socratic dialogues. It “does not always need to get anywhere, because doing it might have a sake of its own” (roughly cited) might evoke a wrong idea of it. It always gets to something. This something is just not always of the type the reader expects it to be: readable clear answers.(Thats because it would defeat the purpose) Yet, the answers are given! I promise 😉
If anyone knows how to get in touch with those living the “life of inquiry” or “fallabelists”, let me know for the sake of us all 🙂
You guys are to be found on a chat platform or something?
I don’t think there’s enough interested people with enough free time to have a dedicated 24/7 chat channel but some can be found sometimes on #midipro on efnet irc… there is also a rick roderick discussion board here: http://larshjo.tihlde.org/roderick/
Was Rick Roderick married, did he have any children?
Yes and yes… Marshall Roderick is one of Rick’s sons and has made a post here in reply to Dan’s comment on October 11th 2010.
Another of Rick’s sons also made a comment on another Rick Roderick site in reply to a similar question, I have pasted it below for your convenience:
“Taylor Roderick
December 19, 2010 – 08:27
Marshall is his real son. There are 4 of us; Marshall, Travis, Taylor, and Max. We all live in Austin, Texas and most of us are students.
If you want to know about his personal life, here’s what I can offer, He was a single dad who loved his family deeply and missed his wife dearly. All of our friends loved him and our house was always a place of learning and debate and laughter. After his death, students of his kept showing up with food and gifts. There are no words suitable to describe the loss such a great mind, but I am very grateful that his words, and i suppose his spirit, remain very much alive. “
I came across Rick Roderick whilst searching YouTube for interesting material. I’ve been transfixed for days now, but wondering where to locate a playlist or index- this website is it! Thank you- I’ll be a constant visitor for quite some time. I’d been wondering also about whether he was still with us- very sorry to hear he isn’t…
I just stumbled upon Mr. Roderick a couple of days ago while searching for philosophy lectures on YouTube. I am stunned and elated by the content of his lectures. My first reaction is Slavoj Zizek with background. What I mean by that is that Zizek has fascinating insight to culture which is guided by a philosophical mind and the content of that analysis and observation is guided by what Mr. Roderick so clearly outlines.
For those that are interested in his Marxian comments I would suggest a series of lectures by David Harvey. He has an online course that one can follow called “Reading Marx’s Capital”.
Thanks all responsible for putting this out there.
Yes the Harvey lectures are good stuff, he’s been doing it for what like 30 years ? And i think you can find Zizek on you tube also good stuff in the vein of Baudrillard would you say ?
i hope to be like Prof. Roderick someday. i’m in this big cave we call Texas and im desperatley trying to find my way out in search of something Good.
dear Bubba you may just want to view Hamza Yusuf – “Changing the Tide” on YOUTUBE delivering spiritual counsel for Americans besieged by a war-mongering section of the elite.
In Roderick’s lecture, “Socrates and the life of inquiry,” Roderick goes through historical comparisons between Greek political cultural and modern society’s. During the lecture, in regard to discovering human values, he says, “I’m trying to localize the question of what it means to be human.” I don’t know if it was due to the time restraints from the Teaching Company, but Roderick seems to be going through a Socratic/Negation dialectic within the lecture to determine human values within modern society. Has anyone else noticed his method within this lecture?
Not sure what that means, but i think he idolized Socrates and his methods and maybe even styled himself in that vein.
Thanks for putting this up, great stuff to have access to, he explains things in such a great way and was obviously a great teacher. I am sorry to hear that he passed away in 2002,
Why did you use a simbol of three spheres in an eclipse manner to represent Rick Roderick´s thinking? Its very important to me to khow how is Rick Roderick related to this sistesis?
I never really thought about it… I went through hundreds of themes and this one just “felt right”. I can make something up if it helps… there are three recorded series available and they all stand on their own but overlap in an important way (thematically connected). Clues to this can be found in the 1987 interview recorded three years before the first lecture series.
Thanks for your reply. It made sense what you told me about the overlap of the series. On the other hand this makes me think that there is some ramdomness about your pick up. I was worried about something beyond that becouse in my own philosophical thinking i came up with the same simbol to express the central idea of my methaphisical tesis.
thanks again
Hey, great site. thx
Rick Roderick has mastered the art of communicating to the public concepts that are typically perceived as dry or irrelevant. That is very hard to do. It’s such a shame he’s no longer with us.
The one thing that Roderick doesn’t cover, however, is the philosophy of science, which is a shame. Luckily, the Teaching Company have a series out about that too by Jeffrey L. Kasser. I highly recommend them too.
I wish more of the internet was like this. I wonder what Rick Roderick would have made of the medium, if that’s even the proper way describe the internet (?)
It seems as if one of his aims was to render various (potentially) emancipatory projects understandable to a wider audience, or to put it another way, to take philosophy out of itself. I don’t think the obvious criticism of potentially freedom-making projects – that the very people that they might help are very often unable to grasp their insights – is a bad one, at all; people like Roderick (or Socrates) are far too few.
Anyway, perhaps the author of this terrific resource might consider gathering Rick Roderick’s journal articles and make them available here? I’m not currently enrolled anywhere, and so cannot readily access journals.
To add, there are other great lecture series on Youtube; try Brian McGee’s interview series, Appadurai’s reading of Capital, the European Graduate School’s page (Baudrillard, Zizek, Badiou), for just a few.
I couldn’t remember the quote. It was something like, “A ________ once is a necessity forever.” Google pointed me here.
Rick Roderick felt like a close friend – one who I never met. The incongruity of the West Texas drawl and the philosophical acumen always tickled me.
After Derrida and Nietschze the philosopher who taught me the most.
It’s hard to say whether his philosophy drove his life or his life drove his philosophy. He was a master of suspicion.
Death is the only truly democratic undertaking.
I can dig it as a big fan of Rick
Sometimes I wonder what, or where I would be had I discovered these lectures earlier. Dr. Roderick’s lectures startled something: permanently unsettling, and rekindled my love for philosophy.
Dr.Roderick may your soul rest in perfect peace.I have been listening to this series of lectures and always wondered why haven’t I ever cross his work[Dr.Roderick Rick] earlier.I am not good with words but will say this a great mind has been lost.
Does anyone know if The Self Under Siege is available on DVD? My philosophy club wants to watch the videos, but our connection for YouTube streaming is undependable. I don’t believe the Teaching Company publishes them any longer.
Hi Beck, You can download the source videos I used to create the youtube videos here: http://www.wimpywombat.net/rickroderick/1993%20Self%20Under%20Siege%20%28fixed%29/
Can you identify any videos from Prof. Roderick which touch on the American Pragmatists? It would be interesting to hear his thoughts on Dewey, James, Pierce etc.
I’m am very grateful for these videos. Love this material!
Thanks.
William James is mentioned in 202
John Dewey is mentioned in 103 and 307
Here goes-Take 2) they are free! All over world on the 25 of january people of diverse backgrounds(often scottish) gather to celebrate the “bithday” date of their poeticle heroe Robert burns-a stupid neurotic fancifull idea made them think it more “possitive to celebrate his BIRTH rather than his DEATH some how forgetting that it was his LIFE that mattered aneasured surely …..(he died on 21 of july)
Anyway (tell me to shut the hell-up if I am being presumpscious) Rick was bourn in49,two years before me-still a youngster-He died in 2002 O.K.?10 years ago.How many people remember his death? Quite a few ,if i am not greatly mistaken.But how many more would LOVE to pay their respects to the memory of this charming and valiant philosipher and do it openly/publicklyTogether?
Thanks very much for this site.
As a recently minted academic in the humanities – i.e. the equivalent of a new trained coal miner in 1980s Britain – I have taken great heart from listening and learning from Rick. The most immediate lesson that so many academics could take is that making your class accessible and making your students laugh does not necessarily mean you are wasting time on frivolity.
Like any great teacher, Rick leaves you wondering what he might have thought on all sorts of issues:
What would he say about the fact that the Iraq War – the enemy having irritatingly disappeared – had to be replayed so the footage could be gathered in HD this time?
How would he have reacted to the further rationalisation of the higher education sector, and the popularisation of anti-intellectualism in the US? Sarah Palin? His namesake Perry? His namesake Santorum?
Most importantly, how would he work a reference to Jersey Shore into an elucidation of Sartrean bad faith?
I wish I had a teacher like Rick Roderick when I was studying. I can listen to his lectures over and over again. I have learned so much from him, and am really sorry he is not longer here. It is hard to interpret the many acts of barbarism around the world, although the key must be money and power. which is why I take hope from the Occupy Movement, how long it will last is anyone’s guess, but it is out there, proving that can still fight of change and sill have independent minds. I wonder how Rick would have reacted to Occupy?
Hi there,
Like, WOW. Cant thank you enough for putting this together. I download Ricks’ stuff on a torrent site years ago, and its wonderful to have all his lectures in one place, as a great testament, to a great teacher. Thanks.
I’m so inspired by this site, that I’m thinking of doing something similar. Did you need to ask permission from the teaching company? What the deal regarding copyright?
If you could give me some pointers, that’d be great.
No worries… I had a lot of trouble getting a hold of the videos since they were out of print, so I just assumed noone from ttc would care. In the end I probably got them from the same torrent you did then decided to spread it around a bit. I have no idea who eventually digitised the videos, noone ever took credit on any of the sites I found. All I did was clean them up a bit and transcribe them to make sure they get indexed in google
Hey, sorry its taken a while to get back to you, been seriously unwell…..anyway.
I hope to get my site up and running soon. I’ll drop you a line when I do. I can see its going to take me many months, which just highlights the effort you’ve put in.
It annoys me that the torrent community is seen as a bunch of kids that only wanna steal hollywood blockbusters. This kind of site, and the spread of not only knowledge and thought, but speculations on ‘how to think’ is worth a hell of a lot in this ever expanding digital landscape. I think Rick would be delighted with your work.
Take care, I’ll be in touch
Hi There,
I love the course that Rick did and was thinking about also publicising it on our website under out theory section as a weekly series, embedding the videos etc and the notes. Would you be ok with that, we really think that his lectures have a great modern day relevance and would be really useful to our audience.
Cheers
Mike
Hi Mike,
I don’t own the content so basically its up to you really. As far as I know this stuff is public domain, since noone wants to sell it anymore. I noticed that someone managed to upload individual lectures in 50 min chunks onto youtube, so you might want to investigate whether those new versions suit your purposes better. I have not verified their quality or completeness but the file lengths of the few I saw look right.
Chris
Will look into it Cheers mate.
Big props for compiling all these and especially the transcripts, enormous work, much appreciated!
Dear Rick Roderick fans,
I am a documentary filmmaker, and I will be starting a new film about Rick Roderick in early September. I found his work years ago, but only recently began communicating with his family, who have given their approval.
I’m reaching out to this community to find those who knew Rick, whether as a student, a colleague, a friend, or all of the above. I’ll be in west Texas (Abilene area) and Austin from September 9th thru the 16th. If you would like to contact me personally, my email is kcandaele@gmail.com And of course you can find out a good bit about my work with a google search of my name.
My thanks in advance to anyone who would like to help in some way, as the project will be a lengthy one I’m sure. But I want to create the best film I can about this remarkable man whose story, in its fullness, needs to be told.
Sincerely,
kerry candaele
venice ca
http://www.followingtheninth.com
kcandaele@gmail.com
hi Kerry and everyone here. i discovered Rick about 7-8 years ago through TTC. i listened to his TTC audio tapes so much that they all wore out, so i am really happy to find this resource! it is so rare to find a professor like Rick, so smart and so deft at making really difficult subject matter easily understood. it seems like many super-smart folks enjoy discussing things in such a way that obfuscates rather than clarifies. Rick really wanted us to understand how philosophy is inextricably knotted up into our everyday lives.
i am a professor now and i have tried my best to emulate Rick’s lecture approach (i have a long way to go, he was BRILLIANT)
RIP rick and best of luck with your project Kerry
thanks for leaving this unvaluable material at ours consideration.
muchos saludos desde Argentina.
This website is excellent!
I watch all clips at least once a year, it keeps me alive
Please, keep hope alive
Any new information on the documentary about Roderick? And thank you for the material, which is endlessly valuable.
October 2012 Update from Kerry Candaele
Dear Chris and friends,
I wanted to provide an update about my first trip to Texas in the making of the documentary about Rick Roderick. I stayed for 7 days, traveling from Dallas to Tuscola (Rick’s home town), then on to Austin. I traveled alone, bundling a small HD camera and tripod into a very small car with wheels that seemed toy-like.
In Tuscola, a town of 700 in west Texas just south of Abilene, I met with several friends of Rick from his childhood. I’m sure you can imagine the stories of this young, precocious, insecure and a bit tortured kid who eventually fought his way out of a town that he considered with both fondness and dread. Besides the interviews, I filmed a lot of “B-roll”, the parks where Rick played baseball, the weekend hangouts, his playgrounds and hunting grounds, and the bridge where in his junior year he had a tragic car wreck that killed a young friend. I visited his home, what used to be a two room shack that is now a three room Taxidermy shop on the main street.
I also spent some time on the campus of Hardon-Simmons, the Baptist college in Abilene that Rick attended for one year after high school. As you might imagine, in 1967 any Baptist college and Rick Roderick were never going to get along. He was thrown out after one year for publishing an underground newsletter criticizing, among other things, the college opposition to inter-racial dating. It’s a great story, and I was able to track down two of the students Rick went to bat for while rustling administration feathers.
My “script” for the trip was an autobiography that Rick had written during the final year of his life, a period covering his early childhood to his being thrown out of Hardon-Simmons. It’s a stunning and eloquent piece of writing, honest and tender at its core, with an authorial voice that you have heard in his lectures. I do hope the family decides to publish it one day, or that it ends up as a movie of some sort. It’s that good, and I will use selections in the documentary, since it’s the closest I can come to letting Rick tell his own story of how a philosopher is made through conflict with the world around him and the struggle inside.
I drove from Tuscola to Austin after spending three or four days wandering around Rick’s home town. Needless to say, the change in both geological and ideological scenery from the former town to the latter was dramatic. As I drove the five hours to Austin, I did as I always do when in the South, and turned on religious radio. Having driven across the country about 8 times in my life, I always enjoyed making my own way along back roads when going the southern route, creating my specially designed tours as I went. Religious radio always teaches me something I don’t know, and the Tuscola to Austin trip was no different. Since I haven’t tuned in for a few years, before Obama was in office, I found the temperament of these stations, and the people who phone into them, almost apocalyptic. It’s obvious that there are many people across the U.S. that truly believe their country is now in Satan’s hands, or is soon to be. The rhetoric is wild, angry, fearful, with a twisted sense that if Obama wins again the world as they have known it pre-Obama is forever lost and gone.
Of added interest to this scene is that Rick, as reported in his autobiography, also loved to listen to evangelical preachers, and studied their oratory, how they won an audience over with well-spun homilies and crafty rhetoric that inevitably broke the world into its Manichean parts.
Austin, of course, is a den of liberal iniquity surrounded, today at least, by what seems like a howling lynch mob, where Sean Hannity and Oliver North are hold key leadership positions. I had the opportunity to interview most of the family, and several friends who knew Rick from his first Austin days until his death there in 2002. I came home with about twelve hours of footage. Just a start, really. I’ll have to return to Texas, travel to North Carolina and Chicago (home of one of Rick’s friends at Hardon-Simmons who I tracked down through the autobiography), and on to a few other places.
But first I’ll set up a Kickstarter site to raise money to finish. We’ll see how that goes. A big, but I hope not insurmountable problem, is that the Teaching Company refuses to license footage from their lectures. I don’t have a clear idea about the reasons for this policy. I’ll have to figure out a way to use “Fair Use” law to incorporate Rick’s lectures into the film. If any of you are fair use lawyers, or know of one, do let me know.
Thanks much for tuning in. The journey to finish this project will be long, but a real treat for me as I try to figure out the story of this fascinating and contradictory man.
All best,
kerry candaele
venice, ca
310 430 1954
kcandaele@gmail.com
Rick has changed my life. I am in no position to disregard his extraordinary influence on my take of philosophy and my outlook on life in general. I am eternally grateful to him and the special people that work to make sure his words lives on. He inspires me when I am at the depths of despair as well as when I believe I am on to something great. I can only hope that some day I may have a similar impact on another individual as he has had on me.
-Ben
Hey guys,
I’m a huge Roderick fan who’s gotten a lot of mileage out of his 3 courses over the years. The more I learn about philosophy, the more they disclose hidden gems to me every time I go back an listen. If you haven’t heard of it before thepartiallyexaminedlife.com is an awesome philosophy podcast that’s completely free and discusses a lot of the same philosophers the Roderick lectures on in a conversational mode that’s both informative and entertaining. You can join the “Not School” discussion/study portion of their site for just five bucks, where I’m trying to organize a Rick Roderick discussion group to go through this course over the next couple months. I’m not affiliated with them other than being a participant in the discussion groups but I’d recommend checking it out. I’d love it if we could get a few more folks interested in the continental stuff aboard.
非常优秀的资源。非常感谢！
NO matter how much the freedom concept of Hegel is popular in the intellectual community but he was conservative. i was just watching Ricks lecture on Hegal and nobody exmaplins things so well…
I always like Rick’s Teaching Company Lectures. It’s good to see his family members comments on here. I wonder if Greg Nagy and Rick Roderick’s paths ever crossed. Thinking out loud, wondering in print…a hui hou
Thanks for the site! I really enjoyed his lecture on Kierkegaard and the Contemporary Spirit. Hope all is well with you restless minds!
I’ve seen all lectures by now. I love this man. I love this site. I feel more up to life when I come here. Thank you. R.I.P. Rick.