Iron Man Needs a Little Publicity (No, the Other Kind) Warning: Mild spoilers for Avengers: Age of Ultron By Mark D. White In Avengers: Age of Ultron, our assembled heroes tackle the artificial intelligence Ultron, created (in the Marvel Cinematic Universe) by Tony Stark in an attempt to protect the Earth from attacks from outer…
Time and Life Everything Must Go By James B. South This week’s episode of Mad Men, “Time and Life,” is full of echoes of past episodes, but also full of reversals. Let’s start with something easy, and then move to the more difficult interpretative work. The title of the episode alludes on a very literal…
Fifty Years after the Fair Mad Men Goes to the Dark By James B. South “Oedipa stood in the living room, stared at by the greenish dead eye of the TV tube, spoke the name of God, tried to feel as drunk as possible. But this did not work.” The latest Mad Men episode, “The…
“There’s a Twinge in My Chest:” Mad Men Goes in Circles By James B. South Last week in my discussion of “Severance,” I noted that Mad Men seemed to be winding down, showing us that the future of the world was artificial and that the lives of the characters, their motivations, desires, and actions were resistant…
Is Fake All That’s Real? Mad Men Winds Down By James B. South When Rod Carveth and I edited Mad Men and Philosophy: Nothing Is as it Seems, we could not have foreseen that the show’s historical time period would extend to 1970. As the final half of its last season begins, though, it’s…
Transcendence with The Boys in the Boat Harmonizing the Team and the Individual (Reposted from Psychology Today) The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown is a terrific underdog story about how the University of Washington crew team became national champions and eventually Olympic gold medal winners in 1936. I’m sure there will be…
Memo to Frank Underwood Your plan to cut entitlements by $500 billion and use the money to ‘create’ jobs won’t work. Why not use it to cut payroll taxes across the board instead? By Peter Lewin The consensus verdict on season 3 of Netflix’s House of Cards will arrive in due course. I will…
[Deadline for Abstracts extended to March 23rd 2015] Minecraft and Philosophy Edited by Ian Schnee The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series Please circulate and re-post widely Abstracts and subsequent essays should be philosophically substantial but accessible, written to engage the intelligent lay reader. Contributors of accepted essays will receive an honorarium. Submission…
Humans of New York and Philosophy How to See a Face By Roberto Sirvent and Duncan Reyburn Even in our image-saturated world, the face remains the primary signal of identity. From infancy, the face initiates that all-important moment of genuine recognition. We find ourselves mirrored in the lives of others as they welcome us into…
Supernatural and Philosophy 10 Years, 200 episodes, and Millions of Fans Supernatural and the Social Contract By Jillian L. Canode The 2014 fall television season marked the beginning of the 10th year of Supernatural. Despite the show’s longevity and fans who are über devoted to it, many people still say, “I’ve never heard of…
The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series 