Professor Kozlowski Lectures

Taking on another overly-ambitious project, Professor Kozlowski attempts to discuss Foucault's early steps in his History of Sexuality , discussing his challenge to the traditional understanding of how sexuality has changed in modern history and locating the project among other efforts to study the history of philosophy. If you have questions or topic suggestions for Professor Kozlowski, e-mail hi...

Professor Kozlowski dives into the deep end of the ocean and gets thoroughly drowned in his early attempts to define love.  Hopefully not without first learning a few things - in true Socratic fashion - along the way. If you have questions or topic suggestions for Professor Kozlowski, e-mail him at profbkozlowski2@gmail.com To see what else Professor Kozlowski is up to, visit his webpage: htt...

Professor Kozlowski discusses the aspirations and expectations of the Mythology class at MSU by walking through the course syllabus.  Every new semester means a few new changes in the curriculum, so we need to keep updating the syllabus to match.  Sorry in advance to all you Internet listeners - maybe skip this one :/

Professor Kozlowski introduces Internet listeners and official students alike to his newest course at Ramapo College: The Philosophy of Love and Friendship.  In this class we'll be discussing some of the fuzziest and most personal subject matter philosophy dares to discuss, much of which will be new territory for the Professor and any students mad (or daring) enough to follow him.  Let's...

Professor Kozlowski interrupts his discussion of Phenomenology with a one-off lecture on a topic he is frequently asked to answer: How does a Christian reconcile faith in a merciful, loving God with the stories of wrath and violence common to the Old Testament?  To answer this, Professor Kozlowski examines several different perspectives, including Dispensational theology (common among Baptist...

Professor Kozlowski gets a bit more introspective than usual, pairing his observations of the final chapters of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita with some discussion of his own work during the lost year of 2020-2021, and what "Professor Kozlowski Lectures" means and is for, now that the original intention for the format has been largely fulfilled. For questions or topic suggestions, con...

Professor Kozlowski ties up a bunch of loose ends, Professor Woland cleans house, and Pilate engineers the creation of Christianity(?) - all in this penultimate lecture on Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita .

Professor Kozlowski begins his discussion of Part 2 of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita by examining Margareta's wild and exciting change from mild-mannered housewife to diabolical witch-queen.

Professor Kozlowski plays some plot-thread-round-up by briefly discussing the many characters (and chaotic situations) who arise in the last chapters of the first part of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita .  Next time - something completely different!

Professor Kozlowski watches (and is watched by) Professor Woland's "Black Magic and Its Exposure" show at the Variety theatre (in Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita ).

Professor Kozlowski continues his discussion of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita by reviewing the devil's retinue, going over the Russian characters we've encountered so far, and discussing the themes of envy and justice as Bulgakov discusses them in the text.

Professor Kozlowski embarks on his discussion of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita , beginning with the devil's mysterious appearance in Russia, Soviet antipathy to religion, and why Bulgakov insists on including a revisionist history of Jesus' interaction with Pontius Pilate.

Professor Kozlowski discusses Stephen Vincent Benet's "The Devil and Daniel Webster" - a love letter to Irving's "The Devil and Tom Walker" which totally misses the moral point underlying Irving's story, and may inadvertently expose some of the ideological problems lying at the heart of the 20th Century's greatest atrocities.

Nope.  Just nope.

Professor Kozlowski discusses two key chapters of Fyodor Dostoevsky's massive, ugly masterpiece, The Brothers Karamazov .  We touch especially on Ivan's arc through the story, and how Dostoevsky uses his character to explore the psyche of the new Russian intellectual, condemn his ideology, and still prescribe compassion for his loneliness.

Professor Kozlowski takes a stab at interpreting Byron's satirical labyrinth: Don Juan.   Including: Hypocrisy! The obvious(?) conflict between classical education and conventional morality! Hypocrisy! The absurdity of racial/bloodline purity! Marital distress! Hypocrisy! Criticism of the Enlightenment! Romantic idealization of Don Juan! More Hypocrisy!

Professor Kozlowski discusses Washington Irving's delightful and cutting short story of social satire and satanic shenanigans: "The Devil and Tom Walker".  This includes some discussion of where the story succeeds - and fails - in its commentary on 19th century racism, Irving's whip-smart prose, and a substantial tangent on usury.

Professor Kozlowski concludes his discussion of Goethe's Faust, Part One by discussing the fall of Gretchen/Margareta, and touching briefly on the conclusion of Faust, Part Two for the sake of closure.  He managed to do all this without breaking into tears - this time.

Professor Kozlowski discusses scenes 6-9 of Goethe's Faust , Part One , focusing primarily on Mephistopheles and the bargain/wager struck with Faust.

Professor Kozlowski discusses the first five scenes of Goethe's Faust, Part One , including the strange and tangled construction of the play, Goethe's biography, similarities to Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, and the Job-esque bargain between God and Mephistopheles over Faust's soul. This episode is preceded by a video briefly discussing the tenets of Romantic philosophy, found here: https://youtu.be/2...

Professor Kozlowski dissects the first Book of Milton's Paradise Lost , and constructs an argument that Milton is making a case for the royalist faction in the 17th-century British Civil War.  Is Satan meant to be sympathetic?  Or is Milton trying to condemn the Parliamentarian rebels by comparing them to Satan?

Professor Kozlowski discusses Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus , the famous Elizabethan treatment of the Faust legend by the contemporary of Shakespeare. For anyone following along online, this reading is all of Doctor Faustus, as you can find on (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/779) . The next session, a discussion of the 17th and 18th centuries,  will be presented as a video (link fort...

Professor Kozlowski presents a crash course in the medieval worldview, in which he discusses the basic tenets of the Christian gospel, and discusses Dante's Inferno in terms of its alignment with medieval thinking as well as its anticipation of Renaissance values. For anyone following along online, this reading is Cantos I-IV and XXXIV of  Dante's Inferno, which you can access for free at: &n...

Professor Kozlowski tackles listener Kit's question: What ideas did German immigrants bring to America in the 19th Century.  Predictably, the answer is neither straightforward nor simple - but Professor Kozlowski tackles the question anyhow. If you have questions or topic suggestions for Professor Kozlowski, e-mail him at profbkozlowski2@gmail.com

At long last, Professor Kozlowski answers the question posed by Pavel Pavlovic of Belgrade: Is the Phenomenological Reduction of Jean-Paul Sartre transgressive?  On the way, we'll talk about Bad Faith, reflective and unreflective consciousness, and positive nothingness.  Get your waders on, because we're knee-deep in Phenomenology this time around! If you have questions or topic suggesti...