This week there is a memorial for the work and life of David Allison at SBU. I had David as an undergraduate and he was something of a legend with students even as he taught these huge seminar rooms on existentialism: he’d be teaching Camus and, like him, lighting up cigarette after cigarette. In the hallways of Stony Brook, he was always approachable (even if at that time he was still wont to wear an ascot). I took courses with him on Descartes and, of course, Nietzsche, and his Nietzsche was one of the few things I didn’t have to re- or un-learn when a postgraduate. His contributions early on with is his 1972 (that early!) work on Derrida on Husserl to all of his later work on Nietzsche and other figures made an impact on so many. Here is the program if you are in the NY area:

DAVID…