Rick Roderick (June 16, 1949 – January 18, 2002) was an American

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

, best known for his lectures for

The Teaching Company The Teaching Company, doing business as Wondrium, is a media production company that produces educational, video and audio content in the form of courses, documentaries, series under two content brands - Wondrium and The Great Courses. The compa ...

Life

Roderick was born in

Abilene, Texas Abilene ( ) is a city in Taylor and Jones Counties in Texas, United States. Its population was 125,182 at the 2020 census, making it the 27th-most populous city in the state of Texas. It is the principal city of the Abilene metropolitan statis ...

, on June 16, 1949, son of (by his own description) a "con-man" and a "beautician". He was a teacher of

at several universities, where he was much revered by many students for a Socratic style of teaching combined with a brash and often humorous approach. His breakthrough into wider circles came with his engagement with

where he recorded several lecture series. Rick Roderick died on January 18, 2002, from a congestive heart condition.

Academic career

Roderick first studied

communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...

(self-admittedly in order to focus on anti-establishment student and anti-war activitiesInvitation to Dialogue: The Emancipatory Challenge of Critical Theory, interview of Rick Roderick by Anne Buttimer, April 8, 1987
/ref>), but moved after a few years towards philosophy. He received his B.A. at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

, did post-graduate work at

Baylor University Baylor University is a private Baptist Christian research university in Waco, Texas. Baylor was chartered in 1845 by the last Congress of the Republic of Texas. Baylor is the oldest continuously operating university in Texas and one of the fir ...

and finally earned his Ph.D. at the University of Texas under the supervision of Douglas Kellner. After 1977 Roderick taught at Baylor University, the University of Texas,

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

and

National University A national university is mainly a university created or managed by a government, but which may also at the same time operate autonomously without direct control by the state. Some national universities are associated with national cultural or po ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

. 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 served as editor of the Baylor Philosophy Journal and was a member of the

Phi Sigma Tau Phi Sigma Tau (, or PST) is an international honor society for philosophers. Its essential purpose is to promote ties among philosophy departments in accredited institutions and students in philosophy nationally. In addition to providing a means o ...

National Honor Society of Philosophy. He presented more than 25 papers, and published 13 reviews and literary criticisms, as well as numerous articles in professional journals. Roderick was the author of the book ''Habermas and the Foundations of Critical Theory'' (1986), which has been translated to German as: ''Habermas und das Problem der Rationalität. Eine Werkmonographie'' (1989).

Selected publications

* 1986, ''Habermas and the foundations of critical theory'', Macmillan, 194 pages. * 1986,
Rick Roderick - Reading Derrida Politically (Contra Rorty)
', PRAXIS International, issue: 4 / 1986

The Teaching Company series

* "Philosophy and Human Values", 1990 * "Nietzsche and the Post-Modern Condition", 1991 * "Self under Siege - Philosophy in the 20th Century", 1993 * "Mill on Liberty", guest lecture from "The Great Minds of Western Intellectual Tradition" (1st ed), Part IV, Philosophy in the Epoch of Ideology, 2000

References

External links

Video clips and transcripts
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Roderick, Rick 20th-century American philosophers University of Texas at Austin alumni Baylor University alumni Duke University faculty 1949 births 2002 deaths