Meet Tucker Farris | Sociologist, Social Theorist, Philosopher, Author, Nocturnal

We had the good fortune of connecting with Tucker Farris and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Tucker, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
Most might not consider the field of sociology, and the halls of academia to be that much of a space conducive to artistic expression or creative introspection. Personally, in my pursuit of the science of sociology, I have come to the realization that it in and of itself is not a “science,” but rather, is an art. It is a craft that must be honed and practiced in order to allow one to find their rhythm, style, and voice in the unending world of academia. Personally, I have found that my work in social theory and social philosophy leans far heavier towards the side of creative exploration, imagination, and composition than it does towards the sides of experimentation, research, replication, and generalizability.

My work explores the aspects of human social experience that are not able to exist in a vacuum devoid of creativity. Things like the idea of self, human emotion, of imagination and fantasy, of death, are questions that do not have answers let alone set methods to explore. So for me, the career I’ve landed in is one wherein I not only get to ask creative questions but get to explore them in a deeply creative way.

As for what led me to the creative world of questions without answers, I would say that it is partly due to a sense of eccentric curiosity that I have had since being a very young child. Where rather than asking why the sky was blue, I would ask some off-the-wall question like “what if the sky wasn’t really blue at all, but we just think it is?” This curiosity blossomed into a sense of fearlessness when faced with blazing my own path, something I attribute to my roots in the wilds of Western Colorado.

Being from the Aspen/Woody Creek/Roaring Fork Valley area, I grew up steeped in a sense of wonder and creativity with respect to how one might approach life’s questions. Whether these were questions posed in elementary school about how we might combat climate change in our own homes and communities, or in broader conversations throughout my time here relating to questions of social, cultural, and political nature. There was always conversation, engagement, and community, but not in the traditional sense. This was a time before towns and cities capitalized on the “weirdness” factor, and Carbondale in the early 2000s was certainly “weird.”

As such, I think what drew me to take the road less traveled so to say was just this, the experience of an innate sense of eccentric and sometimes morbid curiosity, coupled with a social space that was conducive to creativity along with the mindsets of personal social and emotional growth, community, responsibility, and stewardship of the land, and social justice. These pillars or ‘points’ of the compass have been a guiding light that has allowed me to transcend into the world of philosophy and theory to ask questions no one else is, and to answer them in a way never thought of before.

In short, embrace the weirdness, wrap yourself in it, and make it your own.

This led me down the road of writing a 400-page social theory book at 26 and establishing my own eccentrically, wickedly weird academic publishing house at 28. I grew up being my own person and doing so in a way that allowed me to embrace my eccentricities rather than hide them or let them bring me down.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
It is very difficult to spell out what I ‘do’ specifically. Compared to my dad, a lumberjack, I don’t really “work” much. But what my work entails is radically unique to those things in the world that fascinate me.

I write social theory and social philosophy. On paper, I’m a sociologist. What is sociology? We have no idea, we’ll get back to you on that one…

We often teach our students that it is the “scientific study of society.”

But I disagree wholeheartedly.

I am not a scientist. I passed my statistical methods class by the skin of my teeth and with pity, I’m sure. I don’t do experiments, have control groups, or crunch the numbers unless absolutely appropriate.

Rather I see myself as a storyteller. Someone whose “job” it is is to delve into the world of the individual person and add a narrative richness to their experience of the social world around them.

Questions like: how do we come to KNOW who we are? Is memory real? Do institutions interact as human beings do? How is death a social experience? If we know what is real, then how do we know that we’re real?

Ultimately I step into a world where I ask: what is despair? What is human misery? What is the Darkness? and then subsequently: where in this milieu of depravity is the gold? Where is the beauty?

I strive in my work to sit with the troubles of human life, to see the darkness in the world, and try and find if only briefly a small glance of something beautiful standing out against the contrasting greys of life itself.

This philosophy guides me in my professional work in academia, in my teaching and my research, but also in my life outside academia. It led me to establish an independent academic publishing company called Plum Publishing Co. Ltd. in order to seek out others like me who were operating in the undiscovered waters of our fields. I tend to gravitate towards the crowds at the fringes, and we in turn tend to widen those fringes even more so. So I partnered with my lovely colleagues at Light of the Moon Publishing Inc. in Carbondale, Colorado to establish a new age of book publishing that allows for my kindred spirits of radical academics to publish their work in a space where the conventions of traditional academia no longer apply. A sandbox per se. Still enclosed with standards of rigor and excellence, but with the freedom to explore, to question, and to be wrong. It is my goal to allow this space to exist as one that is outside the colonial, racially unequal, sexually discriminatory, and neoliberally exhausting world of traditional academic publishing. From my outlaw upbringing, my approach to the problems plaguing modern life is one that I see providing the best chance for new ideas to flourish: that is, to echo Bob Dylan: The times, they are a-changin’.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
This is a funny question to me as I am probably the least helpful person for such a request!

Never ask an introverted eccentric reclusive writer for their outdoor recommendations, but I digress.

Being from the Western Slope, I tend to find a great degree of peace in the high mountain air, the expansive wilderness of public open space, and the messy vitality of the small little mountain town.

I would first instruct my best friend to try as hard as they could to fly into either Grand Junction or Garfield County’s Regional airport in Rifle. If they were driving, even from the East Coast, I’d say to swing on down through Wyoming Via Rangely, or up from New Mexico via Hartsell and Leadville. Anything to avoid the solid mass of traffic that plagues Vail Pass and I70.

Not just for the pettiness of this, but for the views, the experience of an open two-lane road across the desert of Southern Colorado at dusk with not a soul around, for the tight hair-raising bends of Independence Pass (only if their vehicle was short enough to fit and it wasn’t snowing/winter time). For me, the best first part of any stay in this great land is that once you cross the barrier of the old faithfully brown Colorful Colorado sign, you’re engulfed in the expansive beauty that is our state. The openness stretches from the lowlands of Denver to the town of Alma where you would swear you could reach out and touch the stars at night. Driving the backroads of our state, with good music, good friends and a dog or two is something that produces indescribable joy.

Once we land in our wild little town, I’d suggest perhaps experiencing our annual Mountain Fair in July, but only for a moment or two, real weirdness is found, not paid for.

The Pour House on Main Street has been a favorite of my family for nearly 5 generations, and one would be hard-pressed to find a better french onion soup from any saloon from here to Carson City.

From there, we venture South, beyond the paved roads, beyond the parking lots to the woods, the subalpine forests at the base of Mount Sopris, where, nestled in the Aspen stands is a trail that takes you to one of the most amazing places of beauty on earth. But I won’t tell you where that is, or how to find it. Wanderlust lends us to our own experiential joys.

But the night under the clear stars, on wool blankets, miles away from any city light, that is where the true joys of life in Colorado can be found. The deafening silence of the forest at night and the pure view of the Milky Way, all of it lend to some of the most reflectively existentially significant places one might ever hope to find themselves in.

Ultimately though, it’s not the destinations, the food, or the activities. It’s the people we surround ourselves with. The ones who, no matter the setting, will talk endlessly into the night with you about the most mundane or most terrifying aspects of living as a social being.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I have often found myself at this very same stage in my work. Reaching milestones in school, in life, and in my career, there is always this sense that I ought to be the focus, the one celebrated, the one held up.

The barebones reality of it is that I am nothing without the teachers, mentors, friends, and guides that have stood behind me all this way. My book’s acknowledgments page is over 10 pages long for this reason.

First and foremost, the people who truly and ardently support me constantly on my quests out into the voids of social life are my family. My grandparents who, through their wisdom and experience embedded within me from a very early age, love and respect for the wilderness, animals, family, and the value of a nice talk on a winter’s night next to the wood stove in a log cabin. My father continues to be a source of pure inspiration and support beyond what words may describe. I still recount the story to my students of his marathon week of 10, 16-hour days hauling logs from Kremmling Colorado to Montrose Colorado in order to make enough money to help me pay my tuition on time so I could register for a class I needed for graduation. His undying support for me and my two brothers and sister has been palpable and is a major pillar of my successes, whatever they may be.

My siblings, in each of their own fields and experiences, provide me the support network of referential humor, in-depth social and philosophical discussion, and the occasional reminders of what it means to step out of the world of the clouds and simply exist together over a bowl of pasta at 3:30 in the morning, New Year’s Day.

Beyond the family sphere, my teachers have been one and all the cornerstones of my decisions to walk the path I do and to do the things I do. Each and everyone that I had the pleasure of learning from during my years at Carbondale Community School, Roaring Fork High School, Colorado State University-Pueblo, Oregon State University, and the University of Victoria have left lasting impacts that will stretch beyond the scope of my life and on to my students as well. I owe them my thanks for my love of the sphere of academia, for without their patience, compassion, and at times, stern enforcement of deadlines, I would not today be enjoying the work I do nearly as much.

Finally, there are people who exist in the closer, the more personal sphere of my life that have been nothing short of indispensable in navigating the horrors of the day, the terrors of my work, or the unknowns surrounding us. This ‘chosen family’ has been a continual and perpetual place of safety, love, kindness, and above all, a space where my brand of weirdness is not only tolerated, but validated, valued, and accepted. Without these wonderful people, I wouldn’t be here today. Some specific shoutouts include my constant companion, muse, and source for painful, rage-induced, and ultimately inspired writing, Steele who followed me around this country and Canada in search of a place to call home, and an audience for my musings. Adrian, who from our continual transatlantic conversations leads me to question, explore, get lost, and find the unexpected, and from that, I have become a better person knowing there’s someone else out there who sees the wonder in the little moments like I try to. Alison, who by the flickering light of my office fluorescent shared with me peanut butter toast and canned chickpeas at midnight as we both tunneled through the mysteries of human experience. Melissa, a kindred spirit who I feel I’ve known for centuries, one of the last true sociologists that does the work that matters, truly.

I humbly defer any praise or recognition to each of you with love, for I am but a product of all of the socially symbolically significant moments we have shared over the years.
Website: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tucker-Farris

Instagram: @Satinstrides