Motorcycling as Myth and as Metaphor

Lecture Description

Dennis Slattery has been riding motorcycles for fifty-one years. In all that time, he has never not owned a motorcycle or two. As both matter and myth, what does the motorcycle capture in its attractions for millions of riders worldwide? It makes the journey qualitatively different than if it were traversed in a four-wheel vehicle. 

Part of the myth and mystique of motorcycling goes well beyond functional transportation to help us begin here and arrive there. Motorcycling does not make the point of the journey the destination. Instead, the destination is the excuse for the journey itself. That journey and taking it on a motorcycle seems to be different for women than for men. Does the metaphor of the motorcycle differ between the genders? 

Motorcycling is one way that being on the road can be expressed, reflected on, imagined more deeply and fully, even allowed to reveal to us who and what we have been, are, and are becoming.

This lecture is ideal if

• Discovering the yearnings and hungers that motorcycling addresses and satisfies.
• Seeing motorcycling as a way to activate the hero’s journey that Joseph Campbell developed.
• Learning about the perspective that the journey itself matters more than the destination.