More winter reading

For Intro students eager to get a jump-start on the readings, here are our main texts for Winter-Spring 2010:

*Solomon & Higgins, A Passion for Wisdom: A Very Brief History of Philosophy

*Richardson, William James: in the Maelstrom of American Modernism

*de Botton, Consolations of Philosophy

*Critchley, Book of Dead Philosophers

Everyone will also be encouraged to find a volume of popular philosophy that speaks peculiarly to an interest of their own, and either write or do a class presentation about it. (Jimmy Buffett and Philosophy, anyone?)

If the Critchley title sounds too morbid, I promise you it is not. Mortality was never so much fun, in fact. Here is the author, surveying a very brief history of how Big Questioners have shuffled off our humble coil. (Best exit line, seasonally appropriate just now, was from Wittgenstein: "Tell them it was a wonderful life.")

Pop goes philosophy

The Open Court series of pop culture and philosophy just keeps on going and going...

Baseball, Beatles, Buffett, Colbert, Python, iPod, Star Wars and on and on, and that's just the beginning.

Forty-five titles are already in print, and these are on tap:

Anime/Manga and Philosophy

Soccer and Philosophy

The Rolling Stones and Philosophy

Martial Arts and Philosophy

Twilight and Philosophy

Monk and Philosophy

Doctor Who and Philosophy

The Boston Red Sox and Philosophy

Facebook and Philosophy

Futurama and Philosophy

The Onion and Philosophy

Rush and Philosophy

Breaking Bad and Philosophy

The Dark Tower and Philosophy

Dune and Philosophy

Neil Gaiman and Philosophy

There must be something here for everybody, I confess I've never heard of some of these. It's not high scholarship, but there's a lot of good & accessible philosophy. (Take note, Intro students still looking for a topic. And if you can't lay hands on a copy at the library, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Amazon, Davis-Kidd, or wherever, check out Google books online. We found Bob Dylan there. Thanks for digitizing, Sergei!)

Jimmy

Cinco de Mayo, the great North American drinking holiday with vague roots in 19th century Mexican history (Mexico's defeat of French invaders at the Battle of Puebla in 1862), seems the perfect day to toast the release of yet another Open Court volume of popular philosophy. I'm afraid I'm complicit in this one. (See chapter 4, "Licensed to Chill" - bet you didn't know he was christened James William Buffett.)

Buffett fans are widely maligned as thoughtless, reefer-mad, parrot-headed dolts. But I can affirm that there is a sub-class of us who think not too little, but much too much. Nonetheless, it was fun to write and got me through many bleak winter days.

Cheers!