Tracy Burr Strong

Tracy, just outside of Munich

I met Tracy along with Babette a couple of times at the Friedrich Nietzsche Society conferences in the UK: I remember that he always listened carefully to my presentations and had very apposite things to say. I was sad to hear of his death, and I will keep reading his books in his memory.

Tracy had beautiful eyes. When he spoke about subjects that interested him, his eyes would sparkle with excitement. Many years ago, after I gave my first seminar talk at the Department of Politics and International Relations at University of Southampton about my research on semiconductors, he came to me speaking with his eyes sparked with excitement. I saw appreciation from his eyes for a nobody like me and felt extremely grateful for his kindness.

On numerous occasions, I was very lucky to have felt cared for by his soft heartedness and compassion. In many ways, he was like a father figure to me, always ready to reach out to me when I needed guidance and assistance.

I also enjoyed many of our conversations about his legendary great aunt Anna Louise, his family connections with China, his 1985 encounter with Deng Xiaoping, his invited attendance in China of a conference about Long March, and his 2015 presence at the grand parade in front of the Tiananmen Square to mark the 70th anniversary of the Chinese defeat of the Japanese.

Tracy also shared with me his passion for research, cooking and family. During our hour-long chat one week before his passing, he passionately told me -once again- about what a great chef he´s especially about making Chinese dumplings, his parents´ resort house by Beidaihe, and how his son and his daughter differed in their personality. In turn, I shared with him my passion about writing my next research monograph about problematic sovereignty and my eagerness to cook for him and his wife some nice Taiwanese food.

We agreed that we would meet up in the early summer...

Despite Tracy´s sad passing, I want to remember his beautiful eyes and his extreme kindness and compassion.

Most important of all, I want to be like him - a lofty figure in his area of expertise with humility and good heartedness.

I will miss him deeply.

A towering figure, the loss of whom will grow more obvious by the day, a loss both personal and more general.

I am very sorry that the time difference prevents me from attending.

Tracy was crucial to me when we were both at the University of Pittsburgh in the early seventies. Unfailingly generous, a true intellectual companion, a genuine and faithful friend. We spent many evenings together discussing questions that concerned us both but not necessarily too many other people. Our admiration for Nietzsche bound us together and he taught me-when I was full of the unhistorical optimism of the philosophy of the time-that everything, absolutely everything, has a history. It is a difficult lesson to apply but I have tried to remain true to it and, however imperfectly through the years, to remain true to him and to those he loved.

a well-honed wit, an incredibly facile mind and a love of all things mortal and immortal, is how I will remember Tracy. Anise & David, you have my love and support all ways.

I am among those who admired Tracy's informed and probing intelligence, his engaging sensibility, his integral friendship. And his complex and storied personality. Visiting with Tracy was enriching and inspiring such that I vividly remember each time.

I'm really saddened to hear that Tracy has left us. I was a graduate student of his many years ago and genuinely liked and admired him. I don't think I was a particularly easy graduate student to work with, but Tracy was always patient, thoughtful, and thought-provoking. I also admired him for having lived such an interesting life. Maybe after my time here is up I'll get the chance to talk with him again. I would like really like that.

It was a privilege to have Tracy as a friend and colleague. He was a true intellectual in the best and widest sense.

For me, Tracy is poetry

This probably won't be that coherent but here are some memories of, and thoughts on, my friend Tracy B Strong.
I first met Tracy through his work on Nietzsche which I admired and used in my graduate thesis. Shortly after I finished the PhD in 1989, and since this was in days before email, I wrote him a letter about something to do with Hegel and Nietzsche that, in the way of young folk, I took the fate of the world to hang on. About a month later I received a careful and generous response of which the last line - aimed at Hegel, I think - struck me: 'One should not think that because there is a first word, there must be a last word.' After that we met typically about once a year in the UK or the USA and exchanged some more letters slowly building a friendship. Then email arrived and the possibility of conversation across distance and time.
In 1999 I was going to be in the US for a few weeks so I let Tracy know and he immediately asked me down to UCSD to give a talk and stay with him and Helene. I was getting the shuttle flight from San Francisco, arrived at the airport early, and was offered a seat on an earlier flight so took it. When I arrived at San Diego, I realised it was 2 hours before Tracy was due to pick me up, so I got the bus to UCSD campus and went and found Tracy's office. He was somewhat flabbergasted so I explained and learnt that taking the bus was not normal white professor conduct, and he spent much of the evening delightedly recounting the story to his colleagues with the explanation 'He's British, he got the bus.' He then cooked a fabulous dinner of grilled prawns.
In 2001, he and Babette arrived, recently married, at Caroline's and my wedding where they were sat with a table of Russians and were rapidly having great fun as Tracy recounted stories of his great aunt Anna Louise teaching English to Trotsky.
About ten years ago, Southampton had the possibility of a Chair in Political Theory and I knew that Tracy was looking to move to Europe so I contacted him on the off chance, not really expecting him to apply to a provincial UK university. But he did, and he came, it has been a gift not just for me (though it was certainly that) but for many colleagues and students who have experienced the gentle wisdom and passionate commitment to teaching that Tracy had.
Tracy was, of course, an astonishingly erudite and brilliant man but the quality of his that I most admired was his ability to listen, actively to listen to anyone at all. When he had just arrived, some friends Mike and Mell generously included him in a dinner invite for Bonfire Night. As Mell said on hearing the news of Tracy's passing, "I only met him once, but he was so kind, he really took the time to listen and understand an uneducated person such as myself [note: Mell is not uneducated!]. Very sorry for your loss. He really was a very special man."
He was - and he was great with my kids. We'd meet in the garden of the King Alfred pub and he'd play maths games with a young Arthur and talk to Miranda about her drawings. When a genuinely good Chinese restaurant opened in Winchester, we tried to have lunch once a week over Ma Po tofu, beef and ox tongue in chilli sauce, stir fried intestines, and such like. Here we came up with the idea of teaching a course on Cinema together which turned out to be a wonderful (if not alway well-organised) experience in which each week one of us would lead on a film and then we'd go into dialogue mode drawing the students into the debate. We'd already worked together on an edition of Weber's Vocation Lectures, and later we had ideas of writing a book on cinema together after Tracy had finished working with Babette on their joint book on The Birth of Tragedy and his book on American Literature and I had finished my current projects.
I have so many great memories of Tracy at our house for new year's eve or dinner, in pubs with friends who were writers, in Shanghai Papa, in the classroom, and in the office with just us chatting. It has been one of the best things in my life to have known hm and become good friends. I will miss him more than I can say, and I wish I could say all this better.

I have admired tracy and his work throughout our careers (we are the same age) and was so sorry to learn that he has left us. My condolences to his family and friends. He cannot be replaced... but we can enjoy his recipes. Godspeed.

John