Ten Podcast Episodes on Martin Heidegger's What Is Metaphysics?

When I polled my viewers, listeners, subscribers, and supporters recently, about which thinker I should produce new podcast episodes on first, Martin Heidegger edged out Fyodor Dostoevsky, Aristotle, and Cicero.  So earlier this month, I created ten new Sadler's Lectures episodes on his seminal lecture, What Is Metaphysics?

Each of the Sadler's Lectures episodes are produced by taking one of my core concept videos, improving the sound quality, and editing out pauses, "ums" and "ahs," and any other distracting sounds, generating a downloadable podcast version that can be played anywhere.  I provide them as resources to students in my academic classes, but they get used by many more people all over the world.

Here are those ten Heidegger podcast episodes. They run just a bit over two hours altogether, so you can listen your way through these lectures in the space of an afternoon.

• The Nature Of Metaphysical Inquir
• The Nothing, Not, And Negation
• The Mood Of Anxiety
• The Nothing And Nihilation
• Modalities Of Nihilative Behavior
• Sciences, Logic, And The Nothing
• Mood and The Totality Of Beings
• Original Anxiety And Everydayness
• Previous Metaphysical Views On Nothing 
• The Nothing, Selfhood, And Freedom

If you'd like to make a contribution to helping me continue my work making classic philosophical texts, thinkers, and topics accessible for people worldwide, consider becoming a monthly supporter on Patreon. If you'd like to make a one-time donation, you can do so directly on Paypal, or on Buy Me A Coffee.

Seven Podcast Lectures on Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground

Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground is a text I teach frequently in certain of my classes - Into to Philosophy, Ethics, and of course Existentialism - and quite some time back, I shot a series of core concept lecture videos covering the main ideas of the work.  In order to provide my students (and others) with additional resources, I've been converting my videos into podcast episodes.

There are seven podcast episodes in the sequence, running about two hours total, so one could listen to the entire set over the space of a walk or two, a long workout, or whatever else one would like.  Here are those seven episodes:

• The Intellectual, Inertia, And Negativity
• Pleasure Perversity And Suffering
• Revenge, Anger, And Justice
• Self-Interest And the Advantageous
• The Most Advantageous Advantage
• Desire And Reason
• Enlightenment, Nature, And The Will

If you'd like to make a contribution to helping me continue my work making classic philosophical texts, thinkers, and topics accessible for people worldwide, consider becoming a monthly supporter on Patreon. If you'd like to make a one-time donation, you can do so directly on Paypal, or on Buy Me A Coffee.

Sixteen Podcast Episodes on Epictetus' Discourses

When I first started my podcast, Sadler's Lectures, one of the authors I created episodes on very early on was the great Stoic philosopher, Epictetus.  His Discourses are a must-read for anyone who wants to understand and apply Stoic philosophy.

Earlier this year, I took a poll of my readers, viewers, and listeners about who I ought to focus on next in the podcast, and Epictetus was one of the favored authors.  So I added a number of new episodes to that playlist.  There's more to come down the line, but for now there are sixteen lectures available, each focused on one main idea found in Epictetus' works.

The entire set so far come out to about 3 hours and 45 minutes of playing time.  You can listen to them anywhere you'd like, and learn about key concepts and practices of Stoicism.  Here are those sixteen episodes:

• On The Beginning Of Philosophy
• The Faculty Of Choice 
• What Is In Our Power
• The Rational Faculty
• Knowing Prices Of Things
• Familial Affection
• Use Of Argument And Logic
• Confidence And Caution
• Anxiety Or Anguish (Agonia)
• Duties Roles And Relationships
• Indifference In Things
• Habits And Practices 
• Subjecting One's Desires To Other People
• Understanding And Addressing Anger
• Making Progress Towards The Good
• Preconceptions Or General Conceptions (Proleipseis)

I hope that you enjoy them and find them useful!  

If you'd like to make a contribution to helping me continue my work making classic philosophical texts, thinkers, and topics accessible for people worldwide, consider becoming a monthly supporter on Patreon.  If you'd like to make a one-time donation, you can do so directly on Paypal, or on Buy Me A Coffee.

Five Recent Guest Appearances and Interviews

It's been a while since I did a roundup of my recent appearances on radio shows, podcasts, and video channels, so it's time for another one!

I make these lists every so often, as the appearances accumulate. I also have a more comprehensive list of most of my appearances in the last seven or eight years over at my company website, if you'd like to check any of those out.

I get fairly regular requests to talk about a variety of topics because of my philosophy-focused YouTube channel, my podcast, my business ReasonIO, and my work as editor of Stoicism Today. If you'd like to invite me for a television, radio, video, or podcast appearance - or even for a live, in-person event, feel free to contact me.

Interview on Cooper Cherry podcast - two-hour conversation hosted by Cooper Cherry, discussing the nature of Hegelian dialectics, Marxism and post-structuralism, political perspectives of the present, and what's right and what's wrong with Hegel - you can listen here

Interview on Rendering Unconscious podcast - hosted by Vanessa Sinclair, discussing how philosophy gets put into practice, what philosophical counseling is and how it is connected with psychotherapy, and a range of other topics - you can listen here

Guest Show on Riverwest Radio - "Why It's Good To Give (Philosophical Perspectives)" - fundraising two-hour show with Dan Hayes, discussing philosophical insights about generosity, giving, and supporting community from Stoic and other perspectives - you can listen here.

Interview on Nathan Ormand channel - video interview hosted by Nathan Ormand, discussing Anselm of Canterbury's works and key ideas, what the "single argument is", Anselm's views on human freedom, how Anselm revolutionized prayer, and other topics - you can watch or listen here

Guest Appearance on the Post-Structuralist Tent Revival podcast: hosted by Eric Aldieri, Jacob Given, and Paula Landerreche Cardillo, discussing perspectives on anger in ancient philosophy and theology, and techniques for managing anger – you can listen here

There are several other podcast interviews I've done in the last month or so which aren't yet out.  As they appear, I'll post about them in my social media and on my Patreon site.

Seven Videos on Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Notes From Underground

My summer 6-week Existentialist Philosophy and Literature class, designed and taught for Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, is now nearing the end of its first week.  We are spending about five of those weeks going through selections from 10 key authors in the existentialist movement.  One of the thinkers we are hitting early on - next week in fact - is Fyodor Dostoevsky.

I've assigned the students Part 1 of Notes From Underground, with a chapter from The Brothers Karamazov (The Grand Inquisitor) as a supplemental text.  I like to provide students with a lot of resources in all of my classes, and in online classes, this is particularly crucial.  So, I produced a series of core concept videos going through the key ideas set out in Notes from Underground.

Here are those seven videos:

• The Intellectual, Inertia, and Negativity
• Pleasure, Perversity, and Suffering
• Revenge, Anger, and Justice
• Enlightenment, Laws of Nature, and The Will
• Self-Interest and the Advantageous
• Desire and Reason
• The Most Advantageous Advantage

If you find the philosophy resources I develop interesting, enjoyable, or useful, by all means share them with others. And if you'd like to support the work that I do, making philosophy publicly accessible, you can become a monthly supporter on my Patreon page, or if you prefer a one-time donation, you can Buy Me A Coffee!

Eight Videos On Blaise Pascal's Pensées

Some time back, I decided to shoot some core concept videos on one of my favorite books of philosophy, Blaise Pascal's unfinished but brilliant work, the Pensées.  It's a work that I first encountered back in graduate school, and have often drawn upon, but don't often have a pretext to teach (perhaps I should find one!) in my classes.

The Pensées is a pretty lengthy and quite complex work, so what I've done in these seven videos is in some respects just scratching the surface.  Some of the ideas and arguments, though, are among those Pascal is best remembered for.  I hope eventually to return to the text and produce a number of additional videos covering key ideas and distinctions in it.

For the time being, here are those eight videos

• The Intuitive Mind and the Mathematical Mind 
• Correcting By Revealing One-Sidedness
• Diversions, Happiness, and Misery
• Self-Love and Aversion to Truth
• The Two Infinites
• What Tyranny Consists In
• The Philosophers' God and the God of Faith
• The Wager About God's Existence

Four New Appearances

It's about time for another roundup of my recent appearances on radio shows, podcasts, and video channels. The last list I made was in November, and several new ones have aired since then.  There are several other appearances and episodes either scheduled for recording, or already recorded and waiting to be released.

I get fairly regular requests to talk about a variety of topics because of my philosophy-focused YouTube channel, my business ReasonIO, and my work as editor of Stoicism Today.  If you'd like to invite me for a television, radio, video, or podcast appearance - or even for a live, in-person event, feel free to contact me.

With no further ado, here are those new appearances:

Interview on the Intellectual Explorers Club podcast: hosted by Peter Limberg, discussing Stoicism past and present, philosophical counseling, intentional living, and how to make philosophy practical - you can listen here

Interview on the Tom Richey Podcast: hosted by Tom Richey, discussing Alexis de Tocquevilles' work Democracy in America, models of democracy, intermediate institutions, soft despotism, and the current state of our democracy - you can listen here

Interview with Faith Colloquium podcast: hosted by Shebuel Varghese, discussing what ancient and medieval philosophers have to tell us about anger and how to manage it successfully - you can listen here

Guest Appearance on RiverWest Radio's Image For Hire show: hosted by the Skrauss, discussing the works and thought of H.P. Lovecraft, after a long warmup discussing the nature of philosophy, teaching classic philosophical works to students of all sorts, and the intersections between philosophy and other fields - you can listen here

Things Break At Their Weakest Point

Not even a block in to my 5 block walk to host our weekly Shut Up And Write session, I felt a familiar sensation - my leather dossier, slung over my back, had opened.  Every once in a while, the clasp doesn't quite catch, and the jostling of my quick-pacing walking gradually jars it to the point that it opens up.  It's well designed, so nothing falls out right away.  Usually it's a quick stop to close it up correctly, and then get underway.

Today the problem was a different one.  The leather buckle feeding into the metal clasp broke.  It detached - tore away - from the clasp.  There's no closing that bag at its usual (and only) juncture anymore, at least for the time being.  Everything else on my dossier is in decent condition, so doubtless we will be finding some fix to get in back into commission. It's definitely not the end of the world.  It's not even a major inconvenience - though at earlier points in my life, I would certainly have felt it to be one!

As I walked the rest of the way, holding the bag closed, I thought about how central a piece of equipment that particular dossier is for my work, teaching, and even leisure time.  That spurred a host of other reflections, and I thought they might prove of some interest if I were to set them down.

Eight New Interviews and Appearances

Since the last time I posted about guest appearances and interviews, back in February, I've kept fairly busy on that front.  Because of my focused YouTube channel, my business ReasonIO, and my work as editor of Stoicism Today, I get requests to talk about a variety of topics coming in pretty regularly.

This time around, I can say that I've done something new - at least new for me - with my first television appearance on our local NBC station.  I've also continued to make appearances on radio shows, podcasts, and video interviews.

Here are my most recent appearances:

Interview on TMJ-4 News “Ask The Expert”: a television interview hosted by Charles Benson and Shannon Sims, discussing what philosophy is, how it applies to our daily lives, the uses of critical thinking, and the recent Milwaukee SOPHIA event – you can watch here

Interview on KJZZ’s "The Show": an Arizona Public Radio interview hosted by Steve Goldstein, discussing what modern Stoicism is, its roots in ancient Stoic philosophy, some general concepts and practices, and why so many people are interested in Stoicism at present – you can listen here

Guest Appearance on Riverwest Radio's "Image For Hire": a full hour as a guest on the Skrauss' radio show, discussing topics ranging from speculative fiction, Philip Dick, Michael Moorcock, philosophy as experiential and experimental, Stoicism, Roman history and politics, Seneca, Cicero, and the internet - you can listen here

Interview on My Own Worst Enemy podcast: hosted by Danny Whittaker, two full hours discussing what resources and perspectives philosophy contributes to understanding and managing anger, whether anger can be productive, how anger can get directed inward, and different ways anger manifests itself - you can listen here

Interview on Stoic Solutions podcast: hosted by Justin Vacula, discussing what "in accordance with nature" means within classic and contemporary Stoicism.  This leads us into all sorts of other topics connected with Stoicism as well - you can watch or listen here

Guest Appearance on Creative on Purpose: hosted by Scott Perry, a roundtable discussion on Stoicism, the music business, critical thinking, and whether creativity is a virtue or not featuring myself and Scott Tarulli – you can watch or listen here

Interview on the Axiological Atheist Channel: hosted by Damien AtHope, discussion of the nature of practical philosophy, what is required to make philosophical concepts understandable and applicable for general audiences, and how philosophy can help us to clarify our values – you can watch or listen here

Interview on Benjamin A Boyce's Channel:  hosted by Benjamin Boyce, a discussion ranging over the current state of academia, American politics, practical philosophy, prospects for philosophy in the public sphere, and bits of my backstory - you can watch or listen here

Nine Answers to Common Questions About Stoicism

A few months back, I started a new video series - Answers to Common Questions - to address some of the recurring questions, puzzles, and confusions I see coming up in various settings.  Sometimes they are posted as comments on my YouTube videos, during my online events, or in various social media (I'm on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and LinkedIn regularly).  Sometimes they're coming up in various philosophy-related forums or in sites like Quora.

After giving it a lot of thought, I decided that it might be useful to create videos as responses.  It's an engaging medium, to start with, and given my current digital presence, they would probably reach quite a few people.  And, having answers in easily linked-to video forms would allow me to provide some useful information with just a minimum of writing, copying, and pasting.

Since Stoicism is of major interest in the present and will likely continue as such in the foreseeable future, the questions and confusions that come up about that struck me as a good place to begin. There are a number of other Stoicism-related topics that I'll be shooting these videos about in the coming months, but it won't be Stoicism all the time for good - there are a lot of other common questions on a host of other philosophical thinkers and topics I'm hoping to get to down the line!

Here are the videos I have produced up to this point:

• Which Book Should I Read First?
• Why Do The Stoics Only Recognize Four Virtues?
• How Does Stoicism Define Happiness?
• Does Being a Stoic Mean I Can't Have Empathy?
• Is The Philosophy of Stoicism Self Centered?
• Is Ego/Self To Be Embraced or Overcome In Modern Stoicism?
• Does Stoicism Believe in God?
• Doesn't Nietzsche Prove the Stoics Wrong About Nature?
• I'm Practicing Stoicism. Why Am I Still Angry?

So, if those are questions on your mind - or if reading those titles piques your curiosity - click on those links and see if the answers sort matters out for you. As I mentioned, I'll be shooting a lot more of these, both about Stoicism and about other topics in philosophy as well. 

If you'd like to support the work that I put in on these and my other videos, consider becoming a Patreon supporter!

Eight Recent Appearances

Since posting back in September about "A Baker's Dozen of Interviews and Guest Appearances", I've continued to do a number of other appearances on podcasts and radio shows.  These might be of interest to some of my readers, subscribers, followers, and fans. 

So it's about time for another round-up of the more recent  podcast and show appearances since then - what I've been doing over the last five months.  So, here they are - the shows, a brief description of what topics we talked about, and where you can watch or listen to each of them:


The Death Hangout (hosted by Olivier Lavor and Keith Clarke) - what legacy means to us, death and the soul, Stoic views on legacy and life, Martin Heidegger and "being towards death", emotional attitudes towards death – listen here

Zero Books Podcast (hosted by Doug Lain) - my backstory, the Half Hour Hegel project, doing philosophy on YouTube, some Marx, some Nietzsche, modern Stoicism, and the notion of eclecticism – listen here

Image For Hire Radio Show (hosted by The Skrauss on Riverwest Radio) - my work as a “freelance philosopher”, Plato’s allegory of the cave, what philosophical counseling does, what virtue ethics and images have to do with each other, and even some H.P. Lovecraft – listen here

Paul Kovalski Podcast (hosted by Paul Kovalski) - transition from being a traditional academic to a practical philosopher and entrepreneur, lessons I’ve learned, fears and obstacles entrepreneurs encounter, and how Stoic philosophy and other virtue ethics can be useful – listen here

The Panpsycast (hosted by Jack Symes and Olly Marley) - Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy, key themes of his works, the death of God and transvaluation of values, and his relevance for the present – listen to the first part here and the second part here

The Stoic Creative (hosted by Scott Perry) - a roundtable discussion on Stoicism and creativity, featuring myself, Chris Gill, Debbie Joffe-Ellis, and others – you can watch or listen here

The Stoic Body Podcast (hosted by Philip Ghezelbash) -  discussing Stoic philosophy as applied to health, veering off into discussion of food, animal rights, and fasting – watch or listen here

Stoic Mettle Podcast: hosted by Scott Hebert, discussing Stoicon and Stoic Week, the growth of modern Stoicism, prospects for Stoic philosophy in the present – you can listen here

If you've got a podcast, video channel, show or site and you'd like to bring me on, reach out to me, and we'll get a conversation going!

A Baker's Dozen of Interviews and Guest Appearances

I love doing interviews and putting in guest appearances, for several reasons.  Each new podcast, website, video series, or other venue that I go on expands my audience in some way.  That means that the ideas that I'm speaking about get a hearing from a wider range of people - and that's good.  It also adds potential new clients and opens up additional opportunities for the work I do, as a practical philosopher.  Going on someone else's show or site, and getting into conversations about what I do and what I'm passionate about, forces me to reexamine and improve my own skill-sets ass a communicator.

A good part of what I do involves articulating and applying resources culled from philosophy to common problems, issues, and challenges.  Some of that work focuses primarily on personal matters that impact not just academics, but also ordinary people and working professionals.  Other portions of that work bear upon institutions, organizations, and leadership.  So providing guest appearances and interviews - this is something that really struck home in the last few months - is really a natural extension of the work I'm already engaged in - putting philosophy into practice.

Since the start of 2017, I've done more than a dozen interviews or guest appearances - about a wide range of topics, issues, and philosophical ideas - appearing online in print, podcast, and video forms. I'm scheduled to go on several others later in the year, and just gave another interview yesterday with the New Acropolis. On that note, if you've got a podcast, platform, or site and would like to have me come on as a guest, reach out to me by email!

So Now, Anger Is What The Good Guys Feel

There's so much to say about this recent American election - and so much that is actually being said -that, other than some short discussions and posts in social media (and a dinner-party discussion), I've been keeping a low profile, watching matters unfold, reflecting, and occasionally posting some of the better bits of analysis.  There's something almost like a communicative paralysis induced by the paradox of choice in the aftermath of this contest.  With so much that could be said, and so many things other are saying one might give a thoughtful response to, how do you pick?  Any choice you make, you leave something else out.

One of my hard-left colleagues recently posted an interesting piece from Truthout - Henry Giroux's essay, The Authoritarian Politics of Resentment in Trump's America.  And after reading it over several times, I now know precisely what to start with, at least on my account (I really don't need to think or speak on anyone else's quite frankly).  I'll give the sound-bite, the elevator pitch, or the thesis (depending on which favored term you're inclined towards) right up front.

In his essay, Giroux makes a mistaken distinction in a careless way.  He sets the anger of the left, the working people, the poor, struggling, and oppressed against the resentment of the right, the duped working people, the racists, the . . .  well, why not just call them the deplorables. Resentment is bad, while anger is good in his view.  And we can identify the good people and the bad along precisely those lines - with the added feature that Trump exploited the resentment of the bad.  As someone who researches, writes and speaks about, and deals with clients struggling with anger, this sort of narrative - and the underlying theory Giroux appeals to - strikes me as irresponsible.

Can People Knowingly Do Wrong? Epictetus' View

When a person does something morally wrong or bad, does that person know what he or she is doing is wrong or bad?  This is one of those interesting questions in ethics and moral theory that seems very simple to ask and then turns out to be complicated to answer - at least if one wants to answer it well.  Easy, one-sided, simplistic answers are always an option, but nearly always turn out to be off-base and get in the way of doing the productive thinking that working out a more adequate answer makes possible.

I would say that, when we are focusing on Stoic philosophy, it's practically inevitable that this sort of question about motivation, reasoning, moral knowledge, and the good will arise.  We're right in the penultimate day of Stoic Week at present and in fact, one variant of this type of ethical puzzle did get brought up in a post in the Facebook Stoicism Group earlier today.  It was framed in terms of some categories that seem to be rather popular in moral discourse at present - sociopathy and psychopathy - but the general issue is a much broader one.

The question was put like this:  What would Stoics say about sociopaths or psychopaths who know what morality is, but still want to harm others?  And the answer, to start, is:  quite a bit.

One Sentence Summary on Aristotle and Anger

As the current editor of Stoicism Today, and a frequenter of various social media Stoicism-focused groups, I wind up wading into quite a few discussions bearing not only on Stoic philosophy, but on practical philosophy more generally, particularly when the conversation turns to two other matters that I do quite a bit of work on - Aristotelian philosophy, and the emotion of anger.

In the course of one of those discussions in the Facebook Stoicism Group, an interlocutor asked me if I could provide a one-sentence summary of Aristotle's position on anger.  If that was something easy to do, I would have done so right then and there.  But since it isn't I decided I'd put some thought into it and then provide an answer later.  And that's exactly what I'm doing now.

Aristotle's position on anger is that it is one of the most complex and distinctive of the human emotions, that it involves bodily, psychological, social, and moral dimensions, and that anger can and ought to be felt and acted upon in a number of right ways.

Free Online Resources on Epictetus' Stoic Philosophy

Since the beginning of my career, in my first Ethics class as a graduate student, I have been teaching Epictetus' Stoic philosophy.  At the beginning, I concentrated on his short handbook, the Enchiridion Once I discovered just how much of a richer Stoic perspective the four books of his Discourses (those we currently possess - there may have originally been eight) contribute, I shifted my focus towards introducing students to key passages from that work.

Last Fall, I designed, produced, and then taught an experimental open-access 4-week online course on Epictetus' Discourses for the Global Center for Advanced Studies (an institution I've since resigned and dissociated myself from), donating the course free of charge both for the learners and for that institution.  (As a side-note, I'll be teaching that course again, in an expanded 6-week version this coming Fall, this time hosting it through my company, ReasonIO.)

Building that class was a particularly fruitful exercise for a variety of reasons, the most salient of which here are that - because of the way I structure online courses - it involved me in creating a lot of resources on Epictetus for my students, some of which I've aggregated and linked to here for anyone who would like to check them out or use them.  (As another side-note, someone might ask: Why are you giving people those resources here?  Won't that discourage them from signing up for your class later on? There's a simple answer for that:  People sign up to take classes specifically with me because in the class site, I provide them with even more than what's here, and I hold weekly online class sessions as well.)

In any case, here's the resources - 14 handouts and 45 videos - developed for that class.  If you find them useful or enjoyable, feel free to comment below - and watch for the full class offered this Fall!

Understanding Anger - Lecture 9: Thomas Aquinas On Anger

Our series of monthly lectures for this year -- hosted by the historic Kingston Library -- has come to a close, with a well-attended and very enjoyable last session.  The topic for this talk, Thomas Aquinas' perspective upon anger, tied together thematic threads from many of the previous sessions, particularly because Thomas himself was a great systematizer and synthesizer of previous points of view.

In the previous session, we examined several early Christian thinkers who discussed anger (you can watch the video of that earlier session here), taking us up to the 5th century AD, the cusp between antiquity and the middle ages.  In this final session, we focused on a thinker solidly in the midst of the medieval period, the 13th century, often called the "high middle ages."  You can watch the video of that very lively discussion here.

Understanding Anger - Lecture 3: Plato on Anger

The series "Understanding Anger" continued with the third installment -- a lecture focused now not on literary or religious texts, as the previous two were, but on a philosophical perspective upon the emotion of anger.  At least in Western Philosophy, Plato is one of the first philosophers to devote sustained -- though not exactly systematic -- attention to anger in his works.

To be sure, there were a few pre-Socratic philosophers who made isolated, though interesting remarks about anger, but those don't provide enough to say that we have any real articulated perspective upon anger and the many other phenomena with which it is -- or can be -- connected.  In Plato's works, we find considerably more intellectual resources available -- as I discussed in my talk (the video of which you can see here).

Understanding Anger - Lecture 2: Jewish Scriptures

Last Saturday, at the Kingston Library, we had a very well-attended second session of the new year-long monthly lecture series - Understanding Anger.  The previous session had focused on anger through the lens of Greek tragedy and epic.  This one looked at this prevalent and perennial passion through multiple perspectives afforded by another key source for Western thought and culture -- the Jewish Scriptures.

As always, there's many more people interested than can attend -- sometimes a factor of time, but most often of place -- so we video-recorded the session (you can watch the video here).  And as usual, although I came armed with many notes and a few handouts to structure the session, a number of digressions -- all quite interesting -- added some other elements to the discussions.

Understanding Anger - A New Lecture Series

Last year we (that is, ReasonIO) partnered with our local library -- the historic Kingston Library (a lot in this town is historic, given its age and earlier importance, but the library really does deserve that epithet!) -- to offer a lecture series, about Philosophy but suited for the general public, spanning the entire twelve months of 2014.  It focused on eleven Existentialist writers, and was called, aptly enough, Glimpses into Existence (here's the playlist of sessions).

It turned out to be quite a draw -- a growing group of regulars from local communities would show up, hear what I had to say, and then get into some quite interesting discussions (and at times digressions).  I got to spiel out some ideas I'd been mulling over about classic Existentialist thinkers, texts, and ideas with a well-educated, interested, and responsive audience.  The Library got some decent events for adult programming.  A win-win all around.  So they asked me back to do another series -- and I'd already been thinking about what I might do.