Sadler's Lectures

This lecture discusses key ideas from the early 20th century weird and horror story writer, H.P. Lovecraft's short story "The Call of Cthulhu", a classic work of cosmic horror and absolutely central to what will later come to be called the Cthulhu mythos. It focuses specifically on the dreams that the sculptor Henry Anthony Wilcox has, investigated by Professor Angell, which lead him to produce a...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the early 20th century weird and horror story writer, H.P. Lovecraft's short story "The Call of Cthulhu", a classic work of cosmic horror and absolutely central to what will later come to be called the Cthulhu mythos. It focuses specifically on the narrative structure of this story, which is largely pieced together from necessarily secondhand accounts of dream...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the early 20th century weird and horror story writer, H.P. Lovecraft's short story "The Call of Cthulhu", a classic work of cosmic horror and absolutely central to what will later come to be called the Cthulhu mythos. It focuses specifically on what he calls, in the first line of the story, "the most merciful thing", namely, "the inability of the human mind to...

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's book, The Other Wind, the sixth and final of her Earthsea books It focuses specifically on the ending of the book and indeed of the Earthsea saga, with the mage-established stone wall between the living and the dead being dragged down by humans and dragons, the liberation of the dead, and the restoration of the drago...

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's book, The Other Wind, the sixth and final of her Earthsea books It focuses specifically on the character of the Kargish princess, named Seserakh, and the alternation of appearances of passivity and timidity to actions involving courage on her part. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/s...

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's book, The Other Wind, the sixth and final of her Earthsea books It focuses specifically on how the village sorcerer, Alder, gives up his power and craft of mending, which is at the core of his person, in order to end his dreams of the dead, and to safeguard Earthsea from whatever danger they pose. To support my ongoi...

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's book, The Other Wind, the sixth and final of her Earthsea books It focuses specifically on the different narratives of the Verdunan or agreement between human beings and dragons early on in Earthsea, before they were entirely separate beings. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler...

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's book, The Other Wind, the sixth and final of her Earthsea books It focuses specifically on the insights into the dragons' anger with human beings, provided by a dragon who originally started in human form, Orm Irian. The information she provides adds to what Tehanu was able to get in her earlier conversations with dr...

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's book, The Other Wind, the sixth and final of her Earthsea books It focuses specifically on the institution of the King's Council that Lebannen had created in order to administer the isles of the Earthsea archipelago, and the workings of the council in attempting to deal with the problem of the dragons. To support my...

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's book, The Other Wind, the sixth and final of her Earthsea books It focuses specifically on the young woman Tehanu's (formerly Therru's) task, requested by king Lebannen, of communicating with the dragons to determine why they are acting aggressively towards the humans in Earthsea To support my ongoing work, go to my...

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's book, The Other Wind, the sixth and final of her Earthsea books It focuses specifically on the two leading questions that the former archmage Ged sends to his adoptive daughter Tehanu via the mender Alder. These two questions are: Who are those who go to the dry lands? Will a dragon cross the wall of stone? Working o...

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's book, The Other Wind, the sixth and final of her Earthsea books It focuses specifically on the relationship between Tenar, former priestess of the Nameless Ones and adoptive mother of Therru, and Lebannen, the now-established but still young high king of the Archipelago. Lebannen calls Tenar for advice about how to d...

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's book, The Other Wind, the sixth and final of her Earthsea books It focuses specifically on how the leaders of the two main kingdoms in Earthsea - the Kargish high king, Thol and the king of the archipelago, Lebannen - begin to come to terms, and work out a peace between the two lands. This involves a third person, th...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's work, On The Happy Life It focuses specifically on his claim that "virtue is its own reward". The Stoics (among others) maintain that virtue is both necessary and sufficient for human happiness, and that nothing else is as valuable as virtue. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If yo...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's work, On The Happy Life It focuses specifically on his discussion about different kinds of virtues, using an analogy to going uphill or downhill, where some of the virtues require us to make an effort to push upwards against resistance, and other virtues require us to use restraint to keep things from sliding downwards. F...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's work, On The Happy Life It focuses specifically on the responses to criticisms people tend to make against philosophers, mostly centered on the largely true fact that philosophers don't entirely measure up to the ideals they espouse. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If you'd like...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's work, On The Happy Life It focuses specifically on the relations between virtue and wealth, understood from a Stoic perspective. Unlike some schools who consider wealth to be a good though not the good, and other schools who believe that having wealth is incompatible with virtue, Seneca notes that the Stoics think that we...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's work, On The Happy Life It focuses specifically on his qualified defense of Epicurus' version of hedonism, which he views as different in those respects from other forms of hedonism, which often use Epicureanism as a cover for their indulgence. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's work, On The Happy Life It focuses specifically on the joy, tranquility, and happiness that, in his view, result from pursuing, possessing, and acting in accordance with the virtues, as the Stoics understand them. These states are something distinct from the pleasure that hedonistic philosophical approaches make the measu...

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's book, The Other Wind, the sixth and final of her Earthsea books It focuses specifically on the dreams that Alder, a village sorcerer whose talent is mending, tells to the aged former archmage Ged on the Isle of Gont. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If you'd like to make a di...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's work, On The Happy Life It focuses specifically on the distinction between pleasure and virtue as possible means to human happiness. Stoics think that virtue not only is the means to happiness, but is also one of the main components in human happiness. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sa...

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's book, The Other Wind, the sixth and final of her Earthsea books It focuses specifically on the views and speculations that the masters of Roke engage in when hearing about Alder's dreams of the stone wall separating the living from the dead in the Dry Land To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patre...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's work, On The Happy Life It focuses specifically on the mistaken views the many or the crowd have about the nature of human happiness. Seneca notes that when they make and reproduce mistakes, they don't simply affect themselves negatively, but also other people who end up falling into error. He also notes that many elites,...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's work, On The Happy Life It focuses specifically on he Stoic definitions of the greatest goods that he provides early on in the work. Seneca writes; "Happy, therefore, is the life in agreement with its own nature. And there is no other way for this to come about than if the intellect is, first, healthy and in unending poss...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant's work of ethics, The Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Specifically it examines his discussion of the analogy he provides in that work between the Thing-In-Itself (Ding-in-sich) and the free human being, who exists both as a phenomenal and a noumenal being To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - w...