Professor Kozlowski Lectures

Professor Kozlowski concludes his examination of Turgenev's Fathers and Sons with a deep-dive look at Bazarov's painful relationship with his parents, his ignominious final acts (and death), and Turgenev's complicated relationship with Russian ideology, both within the novel, and as Russia reacted to it. To see what else Professor Kozlowski is up to, visit his webpage: https://professo...

Professor Kozlowski belatedly continues his General Humanities class with a brief-ish (and very insufficient) discussion of the Cold War and the Late Twentieth Century.

Today Professor Kozlowski discusses the first eighteen chapters of Turgenev's landmark novel, Fathers and Sons - where Turgenev coined the term "nihilism". We'll discuss some of Turgenev's literary legacy, including his relationship to Dostoevsky, as well as examine the way that Turgenev's main character, Bazarov, walks the line between tragically human and ideologically...

Our new series for spring 2024 is on Dostoevsky's Demons and the tumultuous state of the Russian intelligentsia in the 1860s that brought about some of Dostoevsky's most insightful work. Today we set the stage: Professor Kozlowski walks us through the Russian reforms of Peter the Great, the wars of Napoleon and his socio-political legacy, up to the early career of Dostoevsky himself - incl...

Professor Kozlowski closes his discussion of the Pentateuch with an examination of Deuteronomy: its disputed authorship, its review of events past, its new laws, and the conclusion to the story of Moses and the Exodus. To see what else Professor Kozlowski is up to, visit his webpage: https://professorkozlowski.wordpress.com/ or contact him directly at profbkozlowski2@gmail.com. And please consider...

Professor Kozlowski recounts and explores the latter half of the book of Numbers, including many new complications in the relationship between God and the Israelites as they wander the desert for forty years. To see what else Professor Kozlowski is up to, visit his webpage: https://professorkozlowski.wordpress.com/ or contact him directly at profbkozlowski2@gmail.com. And please consider contribut...

Numbers is often maligned as a boring book about censuses and laws. But in this lecture, Professor Kozlowski explains the censuses and laws in terms of the story of God's maturing relationship with his people - the ups and downs and ugly practicalities of any relationship, and how Numbers is actually a compelling account of very human failings and maturation in faith. To see what else Professo...

Professor Kozlowski outlines the mixed bag of Levitical laws and prohibitions, taking time to discuss several of the major themes recurring throughout the book, including: the priority on conduct; the mysterious nature of holiness and its strange relationship to cleanliness and sin; and the divine requirements of faith implicit in the structure of holy festivals and sabbath years. To see what else...

Professor Kozlowski examines the laws of Leviticus and how they reveal new insights into God's Nature - though perhaps not as much as we might like. To see what else Professor Kozlowski is up to, visit his webpage: https://professorkozlowski.wordpress.com/ or contact him directly at profbkozlowski2@gmail.com. And please consider contributing to Professor Kozlowski's Patreon at: https://www...

After a run of students asking for advice on learning about Christianity, Professor Kozlowski has decided to write and release his own guide for independently studying and familiarizing oneself with the Bible. Specifically, he recommends the following options, according to the length of one's commitment, or successively, as a way to gradually improve one's knowledge: 1/10 of the Bible (2 W...

The golden calf episode in Exodus 32-34 is one of the most important passages in the Bible, and one of the least understood or discussed. Today, Professor Kozlowski closely examines this microcosmic story exploring the nature of sin, God's character, and how to properly debate (and even win arguments against) God. To see what else Professor Kozlowski is up to, visit his webpage: https://profes...

After one of the most famous and exciting stories in the entire Bible comes...a bunch of laws and a famously boring series of chapters detailing the specific construction of the tabernacle. And yet, Professor Kozlowski has a lot to say about these passages, notably including his hermeneutic of Biblical law and how Jews (and Christians) should (and should NOT) apply these laws and principles to the...

Today, since Professor Kozlowski is feeling a bit sick, he has uploaded his World Wisdom Traditions lecture, in a true return-to-pandemic-origins! Today he's discussing the underworld/afterlife myth in Plato's Phaedo (107c-118a), including discussion of how myth relates to philosophy, how Plato uses myth in his dialogues, and how that will inform the class going forward. To see what else P...

Professor Kozlowski tackles "The Greatest Story Ever Told": The Exodus of Israel from Egypt. To see what else Professor Kozlowski is up to, visit his webpage: https://professorkozlowski.wordpress.com/ or contact him directly at profbkozlowski2@gmail.com. And please consider contributing to Professor Kozlowski's Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/ProfessorKozlowski - where you'll...

Professor Kozlowski tackles the messy and enigmatic one-two punch of the Jacob and Joseph narratives in the back half of Genesis, with emphasis on the weird and difficult passages like Jacob's complicated polygamous love life, his equally-strange relationship with God, and the apparently-nonsensical story of Judah and Tamar. We'll also look at the themes and implications suggested by these...

Today Professor Kozlowski discusses the complicated, post-lapsarian world of early Genesis. He confronts some of the big ticket Genesis stories like Cain & Abel, Noah, and the Tower of Babel, as well as a deep examination of the story of Abraham, and his interpretation of Sodom and Gomorrah's destruction. Along the way he'll examine some of the most controversial discussions surroundin...

Hooray! It's finally time to actually read and discuss the Bible! But only a little bit, since the first three chapters of Genesis apparently warrant an entire two-and-a-half-hour discussion all by themselves. Today Professor Kozlowski discusses the tensions between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, the characteristics of God and His created universe, as emphasized and explored in these passages, as we...

But didn't we introduce the Pentateuch LAST WEEK? Nope. Old Testament "Introduction" is a formal term encompassing all of the scholarship surrounding authorship, provenance, textual criticism & history, and other non-content related questions about the text (largely because Old Testament "Criticism" sounds blasphemous in Christian circles). Today Professor Kozlowski con...

Professor Kozlowski kicks off his discussion of the Pentateuch with a rousing discussion of How to Read! Not joking. It's Hermeneutics time, folks. Time to talk about How to Read the Bible, and just how wildly controversial that topic alone has become, as well as the presuppositions and assumptions he'll take into this text as we approach it in the coming weeks. To see what else Professor...

In this rapid-fire explanation and conclusion to the informal research notes series, Professor Kozlowski discusses the newly-finalized reading list for his World Wisdom Traditions class: what texts are included, why they are included, what texts have been omitted, why they have been omitted, and the underlying motivations governing these decisions. The result is a skeletal syllabus: one that anyon...

Professor Kozlowski continues his study of Hindu Philosophy in Radhakrishnan's Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy by studying the schools of interpretation and commentary springing from the Sutras of the last centuries B.C. and first centuries A.D. in Hindu thought. Among others he'll discuss the logical methodology of the Nyaya, the discipline of meditation in the Yoga Sutra, and the interpr...

Professor Kozlowski pivots from researching and discussing Native American philosophy to Hindu philosophy in this informal discussion. Here he'll discuss: 1. The differences and difficulties in researching Hinduism and its related disciplines and traditions; 2. The foundational texts underlying Hinduism (from the Vedas through Buddhism) and their rough development; 3. The basic philosophical t...

Professor Kozlowski wraps up his discussion of Native American philosophy with a lightning round of books he's skimmed, partially-read, or hopes to read in the future, including: Erdoes and Ortiz - American Indian Myths and Legends Spencer and Jennings - The Native Americans Miller and Taube - The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya To see what else Professor Kozlowski is up to, vi...

Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony was highly recommended by Cordova in her previously-discussed book on Native American philosophy, How it Is . Today, Professor Kozlowski discusses the book at some length: how it does and does not fit into his study, how it encapsulates much of what he has found in Native American scholarship, and how it connects to his own, personal, experiences and understandin...

American Indian Thought (edited by Anne Waters) is perhaps the primary sourcebook for Native American Philosophy today, but it's a strange, discordant book without a clear guiding structure or organization beyond "philosophy-adjacent writings by Native Americans". Today Professor Kozlowski discusses some of the essays in the book, and contemplates its use in his upcoming class, in th...