Professor Kozlowski Lectures

Nope.  Just nope.

Professor Kozlowski discusses two key chapters of Fyodor Dostoevsky's massive, ugly masterpiece, The Brothers Karamazov.  We touch especially on Ivan's arc through the story, and how Dostoevsky uses his character to explore the psyche of the new Russian intellectual, condemn his ideology, and still prescribe compassion for his loneliness.

Professor Kozlowski takes a stab at interpreting Byron's satirical labyrinth: Don Juan.  Including: Hypocrisy! The obvious(?) conflict between classical education and conventional morality! Hypocrisy! The absurdity of racial/bloodline purity! Marital distress! Hypocrisy! Criticism of the Enlightenment! Romantic idealization of Don Juan! More Hypocrisy!

Professor Kozlowski discusses Washington Irving's delightful and cutting short story of social satire and satanic shenanigans: "The Devil and Tom Walker".  This includes some discussion of where the story succeeds - and fails - in its commentary on 19th century racism, Irving's whip-smart prose, and a substantial tangent on usury.

Professor Kozlowski concludes his discussion of Goethe's Faust, Part One by discussing the fall of Gretchen/Margareta, and touching briefly on the conclusion of Faust, Part Two for the sake of closure.  He managed to do all this without breaking into tears - this time.

Professor Kozlowski discusses scenes 6-9 of Goethe's Faust, Part One, focusing primarily on Mephistopheles and the bargain/wager struck with Faust.

Professor Kozlowski discusses the first five scenes of Goethe's Faust, Part One, including the strange and tangled construction of the play, Goethe's biography, similarities to Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, and the Job-esque bargain between God and Mephistopheles over Faust's soul. This episode is preceded by a video briefly discussing the tenets of Romantic philosophy, found here: https://youtu.be/2-F7ZzKHs9s

Professor Kozlowski dissects the first Book of Milton's Paradise Lost, and constructs an argument that Milton is making a case for the royalist faction in the 17th-century British Civil War.  Is Satan meant to be sympathetic?  Or is Milton trying to condemn the Parliamentarian rebels by comparing them to Satan?

Professor Kozlowski discusses Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, the famous Elizabethan treatment of the Faust legend by the contemporary of Shakespeare. For anyone following along online, this reading is all of Doctor Faustus, as you can find on (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/779) . The next session, a discussion of the 17th and 18th centuries,  will be presented as a video (link forthcoming).

Professor Kozlowski presents a crash course in the medieval worldview, in which he discusses the basic tenets of the Christian gospel, and discusses Dante's Inferno in terms of its alignment with medieval thinking as well as its anticipation of Renaissance values. For anyone following along online, this reading is Cantos I-IV and XXXIV of  Dante's Inferno, which you can access for free at:  https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41537 The next session, a discussion of the Renaissance and Reformation, will be presented as a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfMV9cQUzhk).