January Newsletter For That Philosophy Guy
kicking off a new year of events, videos, podcasts, and classes!
It is the start of a new year, which is always a nice time for fresh starts and new projects, as well as continuing on with matters from the previous year that still yield some interest, usefulness, and enjoyment. We’re now past the holiday times - Christmas Eve and Day and New Years Eve and Day - which fell at odd days this year. So it's about time to get back to work!
My wife Andi and I had the holidays to ourselves, and celebrated them quietly on our own in our new place. In between, we had some good time with my birth father and my two kids, catching up, having good meals, watching a movie, and playing Settlers of Catan and Cards Against Humanity. I also took care of the cats and kittens at Almost Home Cat Rescue on Christmas Eve and New Years Eve, going in for a cleaning and feeding shift, and hanging out with them for several hours each evening.
I’m getting ready to teach two online academic classes at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, starting up again on Monday, January 13. One of them is a synchronous class, a version of a class on Anger and Justice I’ve taught previously in-person three times for Marquette University. The other is an entirely asynchronous class focused on philosophies as ways of life and experimenting with philosophical practices, called Philosophy, Mindfulness, and Life. You’ll likely see me posting about some of the stuff I’m introducing my students to here from time to time.
Online Events Coming Up
This is a pretty packed month, with quite a few online events in the schedule. We’ve already had one of them, a workshop earlier today about breaking and replacing New Years resolutions. Here’s what else we have coming up (all times for these events are Central Time)
Saturday January 4, Noon Central Time: Book Launch! Beyond Stoicism: A Hellenistic Guide To The Good Life - I’ll be moderating a session with authors Massimo Pigliucci, Gregory Lopez, and Meredith Alexander Kunz, with discussion of their new book: Beyond Stoicism—A Guide to the Good Life with Stoics, Skeptics, Epicureans, and Other Ancient Philosophers - you can register for the event here
Saturday, January 11, Noon Central Time: AMA (Ask Me Anything Session) - This is a YouTube live event in my channel. Do you any questions you’d like to ask me? Fire away and I’ll do my best to answer them during the session. You can find it in my YouTube channel, livestreaming the day of the event.
Saturday, January 18, 9 AM Central Time: - G.W.F. Hegel's Master-Slave Dialectic And Beyond - This is a one-day special seminar, consisting of three 90-minute sessions, with breaks in between, focused on Hegel’s discussion of self-consciousness, the master-slave dialectic, other later philosophers’ interpretations of it, and what Hegel thinks takes us beyond the master-slave dialectic - link coming soon
Sunday, January 19, Noon Central Time: Classic Metal Class session 33 - Scott Tarulli and I will be hosting the class session with live chat, using Streamyard videoconferencing for students enrolled in the free class (they get the link in the class site) - click here to enroll
Saturday, January 25, Noon Central Time: - Worlds of Speculative Fiction: Steven Erikson's Malazan Book Of The Fallen (part 3) - We continue this monthly series by returning to the massive 10-book series, focusing this time on the fifth and sixth books. We start with a video premiere and live chat, and then continue the conversation in a Zoom session. You don’t have to have read Williams’ books to participate. You can find the link to the video once I’ve produced in, in my YouTube channel.
I may also add another online event later in the month, depending on how much time and energy I find myself with.
Online Classes In Study With Sadler Academy
After taking a break until the end of the year, we are back to offering open-enrollment synchronous online classes in me Study With Sadler Academy again. I’m looking forward to a full year with a number of classes, some of them previously offered in the past and some of them entirely new). One of them is already enrolling, and another will be in the coming weeks. Here they are:
Ancient Philosophers On Friendship - meeting Thursdays, 9 AM Central Time for 12 weeks, starting January 16. We will be looking at discussions of this important dimension on human life in Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, and quite a few other thinkers. Here’s the class site.
Six Platonic Dialogues: Ion, Meno, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo - meeting Saturdays, 9 AM Central Time for 8 weeks, starting February 1. We will be working through these key dialogues, which introduce us to a number of key Platonic ideas, distinctions, arguments. Class site will be open for enrollment in the coming weeks.
Later on down the line this year, the courses we’ll be offering are likely to be:
Stoicism and the Cardinal Virtues: Wisdom, Justice, Courage, and Temperance (8-week class)
Rene Descartes' Meditations, Objections, Replies (10-week class)
Friedrich Nietzsche's Birth Of Tragedy (6-week class)
Moral Theories And Ethical Decision-Making (12-week class)
Aristotle On The Moral Virtues (8-week class)
I will also bring out at least one new asynchronous online class, where students can work at their own pace, later this month. The first one I’m planning to open to the public is on Plato’s Symposium.
Video And Podcast Production
Last month, I was able to get back to some Mind & Desire podcast production once the semester was finished. I didn’t ramp up to producing them weekly, but that’s my goal for this month. I’ll be recording a number of new episodes this month and releasing some of the paid-subscribers exclusives to the general public.
In my Sadler’s Lectures podcast, I’ll be producing and releasing episodes on:
Seneca’s work On Anger
Karl Popper’s Towards A Rational Theory Of Tradition
The University Discussion between Flew, Hare, and Mitchell
Aristotle’s Poetics
Philip K. Dick’s The Man In The High Castle
I have plans to produce quite a few different sorts of videos in my main YouTube channel, this month:
Sadler’s Honest Book Reviews videos
Ideas That Matter interview videos
another “Fake Quotes” video
my first Non-Alcoholic Beer Review video
a long-promised Sadler’s Soapbox “rant” video about the economics of academic layoffs
I also plan to produce and release a number of other videos
a few more Core Concept videos on Aristotle’s Poetics
Core Concept videos on Miguel De Montaigne’s Essays
Core Concept videos on Augustine of Hippo’s Confessions
Speculative Fiction Studies videos on Philip K. Dick’s Ubik
Quick Takes videos providing some useful advice about studying philosophy
Sadler’s Stories videos about memories and past experiences
I hope you can join me in some of the online events, and that you will find the videos, podcasts, and posts here interesting and helpful. And I hope as well that this coming year proves to be a good one for all of us!