In Memoriam: George J. Graham, Jr.

Marxo-Straussianism has lost its greatest advocate. OK, its only advocate. As most of you have heard by now, the eminent political theorist, Vandy's George Graham, died on Thursday after a battle with lung cancer. He had kept teaching all the way up to Thanksgiving break, and few people knew he had taken a dramatic turn for the worse. He was 66.

George was a large man, both in terms of his physical presence and the long shadow he cast over the Vandy Political Science Department. Although he always seemed to be working on three projects simultaneously (e.g., a book on "consensus," a James Wilson biography, a critique of deconstruction based on Hungarian political culture, etc.), he never published much, a fact attributable partly to his perfectionism and partly to the string of painful medical conditions that hampered his scholarly activity in his prime. But he never faltered in devotion to his students, his department, and his university. Strangely, for a cultivated cynic, he was a unflinching institutionalist, a team player, and a respecter of human difference. For a cranky curmudgeon, he spoke as a voice of optimism and reconciliation in a department that was frequently riven by factional bitterness. A walking, talking paradox of a man.

Could a Marxo-Straussian be anything else? Sure, a lot of Straussian neo-cons were former Marxists, but only George tried to be a fellow traveler to Karl and Leo simultaneously. Before the workers can revolt, they have to count up the number of chapters in the Das Kapital, divide by 13, and look for the hidden code found in the middle of the text. Difficult, pompous, smirking, gregarious, joyous, and welcoming. I'll never really understand him, but I'll certainly miss him.