Professor Kozlowski Lectures

Professor Kozlowski discusses the first half of John Gardner's On Moral Fiction: "Premises on Art and Morality", where we'll identify some of the current philosophical ideas undermining the possibility of moral fiction in the 1970's (and today), examine those issues in many writers contemporary to Gardner, and think about the ways that modern media is equally evasive of or troubled by these problems. To see what else Professor Kozlowski is up to, visit his webpage: https://professorkozlowski.wordpress.com/ And please consider contributing to Professor Kozlowski's Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/ProfessorKozlowski - where you'll also be able to vote for and suggest new topics for future lectures.

This podcast explores Professor Kozlowski's interpretation of Derrida's 'This Strange Institution Called Literature' and examines the validity of different acts of interpretation. It discusses Derrida's impact on literature, the misinterpretation of deconstruction, and the ethical implications of meaning in literature. The podcast also explores the Bible's views on slavery, women, and homosexuality, delves into the boundaries of interpretation, and questions the concept of saying everything in literature. Lastly, it tackles Derrida's perspective on literature, the ethical dimension of storytelling, and a discussion about John Gardener's 'On Moral Fiction'.

Professor Kozlowski concludes his discussion of Ayn Rand's The Romantic Manifesto by examining Rand's confused description of Romanticism, her curious application of Romantic ideals to popular, commercial art, and her examination of the pedagogical function of art, especially for children. Can we reconcile the valuable insights of Rand artistic philosophy with her hostile, narrow view of what constitutes great art? To see what else Professor Kozlowski is up to, visit his webpage: https://professorkozlowski.wordpress.com/ And please consider contributing to Professor Kozlowski's Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/ProfessorKozlowski - where you'll also be able to vote for and suggest new topics for future lectures.

Professor Kozlowski embarks on his discussion of Ayn Rand's The Romantic Manifesto with an examination of Ayn Rand's controversial legacy, philosophy, and career, before moving on to discuss her philosophy of art and literature, and making a case for her perspicacious take on art's power and effect. To see what else Professor Kozlowski is up to, visit his webpage: https://professorkozlowski.wordpress.com/ And please consider contributing to Professor Kozlowski's Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/ProfessorKozlowski - where you'll also be able to vote for and suggest new topics for future lectures.

Professor Kozlowski returns to Sartre's What is Literature? to address Sartre's discussion of the situation of the writer in 1947, and expand on his observations there to discuss how that situation - and how literature itself - has changed in 2023. To see what else Professor Kozlowski is up to, visit his webpage: https://professorkozlowski.wordpress.com/ And please consider contributing to Professor Kozlowski's Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/ProfessorKozlowski - where you'll also be able to vote for and suggest new topics for future lectures.

Professor Kozlowski examines Sartre's phenomenological/aesthetic treatise: What is Literature? Along the way, he'll address issues of artistic commercialization, the role of art and literature in class conflict, and how one's historical and cultural moment changes the way a writer interacts with the world. To see what else Professor Kozlowski is up to, visit his webpage: https://professorkozlowski.wordpress.com/ And please consider contributing to Professor Kozlowski's Patreon at:    https://www.patreon.com/ProfessorKozlowski - where you'll also be    able to vote for and suggest new topics for future lectures.

Professor Kozlowski takes on C. S. Lewis' An Experiment in Criticism to examine the ethical responsibilities of the audience to a work of art or literature, and to discuss how the world of criticism has changed in fifty years.  Among other topics, he'll discuss: bad-faith criticism, criticism from marginalized perspectives, intrinsic and extrinsic criticism, and Lewis' own problems with elitist gatekeeping and inflammatory criticism for self-aggrandizement. Suggested supplementary readings include: Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island C. S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Achebe's "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness" To see what else Professor Kozlowski is up to, visit his webpage: https://professorkozlowski.wordpress.com/ And please consider contributing to Professor Kozlowski's Patreon at:   https://www.patreon.com/ProfessorKozlowski - where you'll also be   able to vote for and suggest new topics for future lectures.

Professor Kozlowski wrestles with one of the thorniest issues in the discussion of literature ethics: how do we reckon with bad people who make great art?  Jumping off from Maritain's The Responsibility of the Artist, he attempts to lay out an explanation of 1) How realistic and compelling depictions of evil in art and literature don't have to be necessarily immoral; 2) How it may be possible for bad people to make compelling, powerful, and impeccably moral art; 3) Where and when it is appropriate to support good art by bad artists, and when it is utterly immoral.  It may not be perfect, but it is an attempt to make sense of this complicated issue. Suggested supplementary readings include: Andre Gide's The Immoralists Francois Mauriac's The Viper's Knot David Foster Wallace's "This is Water" To see what else Professor Kozlowski is up to, visit his webpage: https://professorkozlowski.wordpress.com/ And please consider contributing to Professor Kozlowski's Patreon at:  https://www.patreon.com/ProfessorKozlowski - where you'll also be  able to vote for and suggest new topics for future lectures.

Oh boy.  Today Professor Kozlowski is talking about Ortega y Gasset's 1925 essay "The Dehumanization of Art", which observes that contemporary art movements (like early modernism in literature, or abstraction and dada in visual art) are "dehumanizing", or de-prioritizing human experience in favor of artifice itself.  But he's actually going to talk about the political dimension of art and literature - how politicians in WWI, WWII, and the Cold War co-opted art and artists to serve propagandist purposes, and whether or not art can be successfully separated from its political dimension.  Today espionage, skullduggery, and military agendas meets philosophy, aesthetics, and art criticism. Suggested supplementary readings include: Familiarize yourself with early 20th-century art movements and artists, such as: Cubism (esp. Picasso) Abstraction (esp. Klee, Kandinsky, and Jackson Pollock) Dada (esp. Hoch and Duchamp) Surrealism (esp. Dali and Magritte) Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World's Best Writers by Joel Whitney To see what else Professor Kozlowski is up to, visit his webpage: https://professorkozlowski.wordpress.com/ And please consider contributing to Professor Kozlowski's Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/ProfessorKozlowski - where you'll also be able to vote for and suggest new topics for future lectures.

Professor Kozlowski wrestles with his own potentially-perverted artistic sensibilities by confronting Tolstoy's overall thesis on the function and definition of good art, as well as trying to assess, deconstruct, and make sense of Tolstoy's sometimes seemingly-contradictory and erratic artistic judgments by redefining them according to contemporary wisdom and categories of understanding. Suggested supplementary readings include: Tolstoy's own short stories, especially "God Sees the Truth, But Waits" and "The Prisoner of the Caucasus" Beethoven's 9th Symphony (and Piano Sonata Op. 101) Wagner's Ring Cycle John Charles Dollman's "The Temptation of Saint Anthony" Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra, The Case of Wagner and Beyond Good and Evil To see what else Professor Kozlowski is up to, visit his webpage: https://professorkozlowski.wordpress.com/ And please consider contributing to Professor Kozlowski's Patreon at:     https://www.patreon.com/ProfessorKozlowski - where you'll also be   able to vote for and suggest new topics for future lectures.