A Celebration of the Life of Tracy Burr Strong
Tracy B. Strong, Professor of Political Theory and Philosophy at the University of Southampton and Distinguished Professor (Emeritus) of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego, of Chandler's Ford/New York City, died suddenly and unexpectedly at home in Chandler's Ford, Hampshire, England on the 11th of May, 2022. He was 78.
Strong was born in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Weixian (Weihsien), China during World War II to a Congregationalist missionary couple, Katherine Burr Strong (nee Stiven) and Robbins Strong. As the third Tracy in his family, his parents named him Tracy Burr to preserve his mother's middle name (US Vice-President Aaron Burr was a distant relative). When he was a few months old, his family was repatriated on the Swedish prisoner-of-war ship, the Gripsholm. After a complex journey (according to the China Bulletin of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions #68), the ship arrived in New York on 18 December 1943:
"In general, we were pleasantly surprised by the appearance of the whole group. The youngest, Tracy Burr Strong, seemed the most vigorous of all, and won all hearts (See the next issue of the Missionary Herald for his picture.)."
With such a head-start, Strong would grow up a confirmed expatriate and world traveler, fluent in French, German, and English as well as retaining some limited Mandarin Chinese. Strong's childhood was spent in Nanjing, China and (briefly) in Seoul, Korea, before his parents would eventually be forced to leave East Asia and relocate to Paris and Geneva, Switzerland, as his father changed jobs with the World YMCA.
Confirmed an Episcopalian, he was educated at (John Calvin's) College de Geneve, before becoming the fifth generation of his family on both sides to graduate from Oberlin College (where he majored in government and fenced foil and played European football [soccer]), earning a B.A. in 1963 and at Harvard University where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1968. He was Henry Kissinger's teaching assistant and not less a member of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society). He was an active leader in the Harvard 1969 strike and the negotiations that led to the founding of the African-American Studies Department.
Strong taught government and political theory at Harvard, University of Pittsburgh, Amherst College, and until his retirement at the University of California at San Diego, where he also served in administration as department chair and Associate Chancellor. He taught in Florence and Barcelona and Lyon and was an official member of the Sudasien Institut in the Interdisciplinary Center of Asian and Transcultural Studies at the University of Heidelberg. He was still teaching, lecturing and mentoring students at the University of Southampton up until the day before his death. Strong never stopped lecturing in universities around the world. In 2015, he was an invited guest of honor of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries at the official Chinese celebration of the 70th anniversary of their defeat of the Japanese. Tracy was also the subject of a Chinese television documentary filmed in Winchester on 21 December 2020 on his great aunt.
Strong's global interests spanned political theory and philosophy, cultural and intellectual history, as well as film and art. He authored important books and numerous articles on pre-Twentieth Century figures such as Nietzsche, Hobbes, and Rousseau in addition to Carl Schmitt and other contemporary political thinkers in the case of his magisterial, 2012 Politics Without Vision: Thinking Without a Banister in the Twentieth Century. His most recent book is a masterful study of the politics of citizenship in America, Learning One's Native Tongue: Citizenship, Contestation, and Conflict in America (2019). He was editor of Political Theory (1990-2000) in addition to authoring, with Helene Keyssar, Right in Her Soul (1983), a biography of his great-aunt, the leftist journalist and author Anna Louise Strong (1885-1970). For some time, his first book has been recognized as a classic: Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of Transfiguration (1975), still engaging, a watershed not only in political philosophy but Nietzsche studies. Intellectually engaged until the end, Strong was working on Nietzsche on questions of good and evil - and love - in addition to the influence of Heidegger and Arendt in the life and letters of his long-time friend, Stanley Cavell.
Strong had a long-lasting interest in the music of Wagner and Beethoven and other forms of classical, folk, and rock music: he played both piano and guitar. He also engaged deeply with the works of Samuel Beckett (having played the role of Nagg in an Amherst bilingual production of Endgame), Mark Twain, Shakespeare, and many other writers. His delight in wine and fine dining was equaled by his own expertise in both Chinese and classical French cooking, fostered by his childhood in those nations. His elaborate and frequent dinner parties were a highlight of UCSD departmental life, generally featuring his famous Szechuan sesame noodles.
He is survived by his wife, Babette Babich Strong of Chandler's Ford/New York City, his son David Dadalus Strong Franke and daughter-in-law Kristina Johnson of Los Angeles, California, his daughter Anise Keyssar Strong-Morse, son-in-law Adam Strong-Morse and grandchildren, Mclevy, Robert, and Katharine of Kalamazoo, Michigan; a sister Jeanne R. Strong of Langley, Washington, a brother John S. Strong and sister-in-law Sarah M. Strong of Auburn, Maine. Tracy is also survived by his first wife, Penelope Harger of Greenbank, Washington. Tracy was predeceased by his parents and his second wife, Helene Keyssar.
―Legacy Remembers
