I am sorry I was not able to attend this wonderful celebration of your work. I was very much there in spirit, and look forward to engaging with your new book and all that is still to come.
I am happy to have this opportunity to tell you how very grateful I am for your kind and patient guidance over the years. I feel ridiculously fortunate to have spent so much time learning from you. As a wayward economist, I was especially grateful for your invaluable help in building the philosophical foundations of my dissertation, and – most especially – for your agreeing to be on my committee. Your support was not only essentially important to the substance of the work, but also in giving me the confidence to see it through. Above all, I am grateful for all I learned from you about being a scholar, both from your teaching and from your example.
One favorite memory is a walk through Harvard Yard a few years after I had graduated. I was working on turning my dissertation into a book, and you asked how the work was going. When I told you it was a bit of a slog, you recalled an old Peter Cook sketch: one man says to another “I’m writing a book, you know,” and the other replies, “Oh really? Neither am I.”
Very sorry I can't make it over to the US for this amazing celebration of your career (or rather, career to date- there is much more to come, and I'm looking forward to reading Active and Passive Citizens). Unfortunately, I still have a couple of classes left to teach this semester, which have made the logistics of a transatlantic trip unworkable. I'm sad to miss what promises to be a fantastic event, gathering together a multitude of interesting people whom you have influenced in profound ways.
For my part, I'm hugely grateful that you convinced me to come to Harvard for grad school way back in 2003, grateful for the seminars (most memorably, the one that turned into a two-hour discussion of one sentence of Book Two Chapter Three of the Social Contract), and grateful for all the insight and advice throughout my doctoral studies and beyond. Fingers crossed there can be a UK-based sequel to this conference in the near future!
Three artifacts from graduate school, only the first of which is really mine:
I used to make drawings on MSPaint (the free drawing program that came with previous versions of Windows, now discontinued). I drew Richard (below) announcing a party at his house at the end of his Hobbes "seminar" in the Spring of 2011. The course in question had been assigned one of the tiny six-person classrooms on the first floor of CGIS-K, presumably because Richard had assured the registrar that it would indeed be a seminar. And then he seemed utterly surprised when about forty people turned up to the first Hobbes seminar he was teaching since "when Eric Nelson was an undergraduate". The course had to be moved to a larger room.
2. A group of theory grad students, mostly from the classes that matriculated in 2009 and 2010, made a Richard Tuck bingo (below) for what I think was his Locke "seminar." I believe our cover was blown when Greg Conti showed the bingo sheet to Richard.
3. The Richard Tuck segment from our year's Christmas skit in 2010:
Dear Richard,
I am sorry I was not able to attend this wonderful celebration of your work. I was very much there in spirit, and look forward to engaging with your new book and all that is still to come.
I am happy to have this opportunity to tell you how very grateful I am for your kind and patient guidance over the years. I feel ridiculously fortunate to have spent so much time learning from you. As a wayward economist, I was especially grateful for your invaluable help in building the philosophical foundations of my dissertation, and – most especially – for your agreeing to be on my committee. Your support was not only essentially important to the substance of the work, but also in giving me the confidence to see it through. Above all, I am grateful for all I learned from you about being a scholar, both from your teaching and from your example.
One favorite memory is a walk through Harvard Yard a few years after I had graduated. I was working on turning my dissertation into a book, and you asked how the work was going. When I told you it was a bit of a slog, you recalled an old Peter Cook sketch: one man says to another “I’m writing a book, you know,” and the other replies, “Oh really? Neither am I.”
Thank you for everything, Richard.
All the best,
Peter
Dear Richard-
Very sorry I can't make it over to the US for this amazing celebration of your career (or rather, career to date- there is much more to come, and I'm looking forward to reading Active and Passive Citizens). Unfortunately, I still have a couple of classes left to teach this semester, which have made the logistics of a transatlantic trip unworkable. I'm sad to miss what promises to be a fantastic event, gathering together a multitude of interesting people whom you have influenced in profound ways.
For my part, I'm hugely grateful that you convinced me to come to Harvard for grad school way back in 2003, grateful for the seminars (most memorably, the one that turned into a two-hour discussion of one sentence of Book Two Chapter Three of the Social Contract), and grateful for all the insight and advice throughout my doctoral studies and beyond. Fingers crossed there can be a UK-based sequel to this conference in the near future!
Very best of wishes,
Nick
Three artifacts from graduate school, only the first of which is really mine:
I used to make drawings on MSPaint (the free drawing program that came with previous versions of Windows, now discontinued). I drew Richard (below) announcing a party at his house at the end of his Hobbes "seminar" in the Spring of 2011. The course in question had been assigned one of the tiny six-person classrooms on the first floor of CGIS-K, presumably because Richard had assured the registrar that it would indeed be a seminar. And then he seemed utterly surprised when about forty people turned up to the first Hobbes seminar he was teaching since "when Eric Nelson was an undergraduate". The course had to be moved to a larger room.
2. A group of theory grad students, mostly from the classes that matriculated in 2009 and 2010, made a Richard Tuck bingo (below) for what I think was his Locke "seminar." I believe our cover was blown when Greg Conti showed the bingo sheet to Richard.
3. The Richard Tuck segment from our year's Christmas skit in 2010:
https://youtu.be/dw1Coz-Dlgg?feature=shared&t=289