2017 LaFollette Lecture: Professor Brian Tucker ’98
Associate Professor of German Brian Tucker ’98 delivers the College's most distinguished lecture, the LaFollette Lecture in the Humanities.
Professor of Philosophy Cheryl Hughes was named the Charles D. and Elizabeth S. LaFollette Distinguished Professor in the Humanities earlier this year. She introduced last year's lecturer, Professor of History and Religion Bob Royalty.
Professor Royalty introduces Brian Tucker, his colleague and Zionsville, IN neighbor.
Tucker: 'I think it’s helpful to reframe Freud’s work—away from his own scientific ambitions, and more in the direction of reading and the humanities. For this is what Freud really develops around 1900 – a new way of reading that seeks to uncover meaning in the mind’s phenomena, in its symbols, images, figures, slips, and symptoms.'
Tucker: 'Others described women’s reading habits as an “addiction” and that’s not a coincidence. Within this discourse on reading, it was common to equate the dangers of reading with the dangers of drug addiction. The philosopher Johann Fichte speaking in 1804, said: “Reading, like any other narcotic, sets one in a comfortable state suspended between sleep and wakefulness. It lulls one into a sweet oblivion.”
'In “Mondnacht,” the lyric subject ultimately longs to eradicate the divergence marked by grammatical mood. It wants to erase the difference between fantasy and reality. It longs for a world in which the mind’s movements can make present what is absent and recover what has been lost.'
'My last slide today brings together reading and movement in a different way. It’s a picture of Wabash students moving through the gorgeous public library in Stuttgart, Germany.'
German Department colleague Professor Greg Redding congratulates Tucker after the lecture.
Charles LaFollette's son, Gary, talks with Professor Tucker after the lecture.
Chair of the Humanities Division and Professor of Spanish Dan Rogers and students savor the moment with Professor Tucker.
Big Relief: Brian and Danielle Tucker relax after Brian's LaFollette Lecture.
Danielle listens as Brian's talk is praised by Trustee Roger Billings ’59.
Tucker is congratulated by one of his students.
Brian and Danielle talk with students as the couple prepares to leave for the dinner honoring the Tuckers.