Pop Goes Philosophy

Nobel Prizes and Nobel Promises

[10.Nov.09] :. President Obama probably rattled and hummed in disbelief when he got his Nobel Prize. Ask Bono.
 

Captain Obama and the Final Frontier

[15.Sep.09] :. Obama's four-year mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new kinds of political confusion; to boldly go where no rational health-care reformer has gone before.
 

Hail to the Thief, Again?

[22.Jul.09] :. Thom Yorke’s thoughts about political power are in good company. Great theorists of power and justice agree: “you do it to yourself”.
 

Obama is The Boss

[13.May.09] :. What Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen share is an understanding that real life happens on the ground, regardless of the hot ideological winds blowing through Crawford or Washington D.C. or talk radio.
 

Don’t Touch that Dial

[10.Mar.09] :. If Congress had its way, Dorothy would have clicked her ruby slippers together and chanted, “There’s no place like home theater. There’s no place like home theater.”
 

Where the Frak is All My Money?

[27.Jan.09] :. Battlestar Galactica is like Wall Street—it’s hard to tell Cylons from humans, especially when it comes to galaxy-size Ponzi schemes.
 

Our Zombies, Our Selves

[27.Oct.08] :. Zombies, politicians, and consumers alike seek immediate gratification. But can they be happy?
 

I’m Not There, and Neither Are You

[9.Sep.08] :. The Bob Dylan film, I’m Not There, shows that the main puzzle behind pop music’s most enigmatic personality resides right here, within us all.
 

George W. and J. Peterman, Philosophically Speaking

[16.Jul.08] :. It takes guts to look squarely at the paradox of subjectivity, as former White House press secretary Scott McClellan can attest.
 

Cultural Meanings in America Make Benefit Glorious Bank Accounts of Creationists

[7.May.08] :. Is Ben Stein taking a page from Michael Moore? No, from Borat is more like it.
 

Rock Hits Wall

[3.Mar.08] :. Does a conservative obsession with its past threaten the originality and imagination of today's rock music? Pink Floyd's The Wall casts a long shadow on the genre.
 

Lead Us Not Into Speculation, Nor Excessive Computation

[15.Jan.08] :. A prominent philosopher argues that you, me, and everyone you know may be an artificial computer-simulation of a person.
 

Don’t Keep Your Philosophy Under Your (Mr.) Hat

[14.Nov.07] :. The point of philosophy going pop is not to exalt the ivory tower and herd people inside; it’s to give philosophers a chance to leave.
 

My Philosophy, My Vertigo

[5.Sep.07] :. Are the workings of the human mind and heart forever beyond the reach of science to understand? Two philosophers find the question - and opposed answers - in Hitchcock’s Vertigo.
 

Freedom’s Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Choose

[10.Jul.07] :. Stoics say freedom is an illusion. That's why they have no choice but to think deeply about the Grateful Dead.
 

High-Minded Bullshit

[8.May.07] :. Philosophy itself is often regarded as part and parcel with the bullshit of popular culture. But it is philosophers who been trying to determine exactly what bullshit is and how it works its magic.
 

The Meaning (wink, wink) of Life

[9.Apr.07] :. Welcome to Pop Goes Philosophy by various authors with Open Court Publishing; where philosophers find deep meaning in the depths, and at least a tiny ray of reflection in the shallows, of all that is pop culture.