On Neil Postman’s 1985 book, assessing the implications of media and entertainment on our modern political climate, our relation to technology, including social media, and what may have been lost in the shift from a typographic culture to one in which any answer seems attainable by means of rapid data access.
Great Discourses: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
A class session from a Great Discourses seminar on Robert Pirsig’s novel/memoir/philosophical treatise taught by Adam Rose, featuring Dave Buchanan (reprising his role as Prisig enthusiast from PEL episode 50, plus participants from Berkeley, Seattle, Chicago, Brazil, and Mexico!
Not School Intro Group: Camus’s “Myth of Sisyphus”
Brian Wilson leads a seminar on Albert Camus’s essay “The Myth of Sissyphus,” deepening our look into Camus following PEL episode 4. Recorded 8/8/16.
Great Discourses: The Trial and Death of Socrates Excerpts
A seminar given by Adam Rose about Plato’s “Apology” and “Phaedrus,” and a bit from one on “Crito.” This is what it’s like to be in a Great Discourses seminar; PEL Citizens get 20% off admission into any of these at greatdiscourses.com with the promo code PELCITIZEN16. Join the Great Discourses Not School group for more info.
Not School Intro Group: Plato’s “Crito”
The first session of the newly revived group, led 3/20/16 by Brian Wilson of Combat & Classics fame (a St. John’s thing). Featuring Steve Kurtz, Stacey Morris, Roger Crandy, Nick Eddy, Justin Modra, James Lee, and Cathy Reisenwitz.
Not School Fiction Group: Albert Camus’ “The Fall” (Phi-Fi #16)
The Philosophical Fiction group, featuring Nathan Hanks, Daniel Cole, Cezary Baraniecki, Laura Davis, and Mary Ricci, in conversation on the novel by Albert Camus, The Fall. We discuss the “portrait as a mirror,” “party guilt,” Jesus, traffic, and the human condition. Recorded 8/30/15.
Not School Fiction Group: Isaac Asimov’s “The Last Question” (Phi-Fi #15)
The Philosophical Fiction group, featuring Nathan Hanks, Daniel Cole, Cezary Baraniecki, Laura Davis, and Mary Ricci, in conversation on the short story by Isaac Asimov, “The Last Question.”
Not School Fiction Group: Walker Percy’s “The Moviegoer” (Phi-Fi #14)
Featuring Nathan Hanks, Daniel Cole, Cezary Baraniecki, Laura Davis and Mary Ricci. Recorded 7/26/15. According to the discussion, it’s about an “existential crisis in beautiful language… with Southern charm.”
Not School Fiction Group: Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” (Phi-Fi #13)
Featuring Nathan Shane Hanks, Daniel Cole, Laura Davis, and Mary Ricci. Recorded July 19, 2015. The story is about one special day in an American “village” that turns horrific and ends with, as was said, “the most perfect last line.” We partially spoil the story, use adult language, and wander into politics and religion.
Not School: C. S. Peirce’s “The Fixation of Belief”
Featuring David Prentiss, Tim Clarke, Peter Oppenheim. Recorded July 19, 2015, 41 min. Peirce describes belief, doubt, and inquiry, and proposes four types of intellectual activity that result in fixed beliefs, claiming that science, of all the methods he describes, has the most desirable properties.
How do these four methods differ? Do the a priori and scientific methods necessarily differ in the adoption of first principles? Is there a continuum of increasing reliance on social interaction across the four methods? Do any of the methods result in what we would commonly call consensus?
For another look at this, listen to PEL ep. 20.
Not School Fiction Group: Franz Kafka’s “In the Penal Colony” (Phi-Fi #12)
Featuring Nathan Shaine, Daniel Cole, Cezary, Laura Davis, and Mary Ricci. Recorded May 31, 2015. About a traveler visiting a penal colony who meets the officer in charge of a justice system. It’s tense, violent, surprising, and “kind of like a Tarantino movie.”
Not School Theater Group: Philip Auslander on Post-Modern Theater
The Philosophy and Theater group discusses From Acting to Performance: Essays in Modernism and Postmodernism, covering the therapeutic value of catharsis, deconstruction in theater, and Willem Dafoe’s acting methods. Featuring Daniel Cole, Philip Cherny, Carlos Franke. Recorded April 19, 2015.
Not School Fiction Group: Virginia Woolf’s “To The Lighthouse” (Phi-Fi #11)
Featuring Nathan Shaine, Daniel Cole, Cezary, Laura Davis, and Dan Johnson. Recorded April 5, 2015. Talking about time, beauty, and life in Woolf’s 1927 novel.
Not School: Karl Jaspers’s “Truth and Symbol”
Featuring Mark Linsenmayer, Michael Burgess, Tara Leigh Bell, John Ludders, Chris Eyre, Benjamin Feddersen. Recorded April 26, 2015, 1 hr., 50 min. How to see objects as cyphers for the Encompassing (Being/God/etc.).
Not School Theater Group: Jerzy Grotowski’s Sourcebook
The first of two discussions on Jerzy Grotowski, the famous Polish director whose productions first stunned audiences in the 1960s with their distinctive physicality. Featuring Daniel Cole, Philip Cherny, Carlos Franke. Recorded January 4, 2015.
Not School Theater Group: Jerzy Grotowski’s “Akropolis”
Concluding the Philosophy and Theater Group’s two-month foray into the Polish director’s work; listen to part one first. Covering the play Akropolis as well as more of the Grotowski Sourcebook. Featuring Daniel Cole, Philip Cherny, and Carlos Franke. Recorded January 4, 2015.
Not School Fiction Group: Michel Houellebecq’s “The Map and the Territory” (Phi-Fi #10)
Featuring Nathan Hanks, Daniel Cole, and Kimberly. Recorded December 12, 2014. Discussing the story of Jed Martin, a man at the “at the beginning of the third millenium” whose successful life as an artist pales against his lonely life as a human.
Check out the Philosophical Fiction group.
Not School Fiction Group: James Joyce’s “Ulysses” (Phi-Fi #4)
Featuring Nathan Shaine, Daniel Cole, Philip Cherny and Laura Davis. Recorded Mar. 9, 2014. Not everyone had finished the book, but we all got a sense of the richness and depth of Joyce’s expanding story of the phenomena of a single day. There are Irish folk songs, stunning prose, a style weaving between the inner-thoughts of characters, and content considered blasphemous and obscene in its day.
Check out the Philosophical Fiction group.
Not School Fiction Group: Roberto Bolano’s “Distant Star” (Phi-Fi #9)
Featuring Nathan Shaine, Philip Cherny, Daniel Cole, Dan Johnson, Kimberly, and Cezary. Recorded November 9, 2014. A novel about Chile, Art, and literally killer poets.
Check out the Philosophical Fiction group.
Not School Theater Group: Victor Turner’s “From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play”
Turner was a true inter-disciplinarian, and this book draws from his own work in anthropology, as well as philosophy, drama, and sociology. Turner believed that acting out the rituals of other cultures provides a rich, sympathetic connection to them that can’t be accessed from detached observation or the perusal of data. Turner saw drama and ritual all over the place in developed societies, with plenty of parallels to the tribal cultures he’d studied in Africa. Featuring Daniel Cole, Philip Cherny, and Carlos Franke. Recorded October 12, 2014.