Entitled Opinions (about Life and Literature)

Eric McLuhan, an internationally recognized lecturer and media expert, shares insights about his father, Marshall McLuhan's profound theories on communication. He explores how modern media reshapes perception and societal interactions, emphasizing the shift from traditional connections to digital sensory experiences. The discussion delves into 'the medium is the message' concept, examining its relevance today. Eric also highlights their collaborative efforts in defining media laws and how mass media influences public consciousness and individual identity.

Jay Kadis was born in Oakland, California. He has played guitar since high school, initially with Misanthropes, a popular bay area band of the late 1960s, whose highlights included playing the Fillmore Auditorium and opening for Muddy Waters. Jay has written and performed original rock music with several bands, including Urban Renewal and Offbeats. He […]

Dr. Michaela Hulstyn is a lecturer in the Structured Liberal Education program at Stanford University. She earned her PhD from Stanford in 2016 in French, where she taught both language and literature. She has been published in Modern Language Notes and Women in French Studies, among other places. Her research interests center on 20th and […]

Sam Ginn is a second year undergraduate student at Stanford University. He is a computer science major interested in human consciousness and whether human consciousness is artificially replicable. Sam is also a participant in the philosophical reading group at Stanford and he is a devotee of Martin Heidegger's thought. In this show Sam discusses the […]

Who is Donald Trump, and what does he stand for? Do we know? Does he himself know? Or is he caught in that precarious state of disorientation that characterizes our current political predicament?   The public discourse is heated, the language inflammatory. Philosopher Hans Sluga of the University of California, Berkeley, brings a cool head […]

Peter Sloterdijk, a renowned German philosopher and author, dives into Nietzsche's revolutionary ideas with host Robert Harrison. They explore Nietzsche's unique view of St. Paul as the true founder of Christianity and how his works serve as a 'fifth gospel.' Sloterdijk links Nietzsche’s metaphor of dynamite to cultural truths, emphasizing the influence of Wagner on Nietzsche’s thoughts about tragedy. He reflects on the legacy of Nietzschean thought and discusses modern messages without divine senders, framing them as affirmations of life's truths.

“Mary Shelley is a dissenting voice”: Inga Pierson on Frankenstein and the Age of Science January 2018 marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus, and the occasion has been commemorated with celebrations, conferences, retrospectives, editorials, and more. Clearly, the book belongs to the twenty-first century, as much as it […]

“It has happened. So it can happen again.” Philip Gourevitch on genocide We live in an era of genocides. Author Philip Gourevitch is one of its experts, probing how genocide happens, how the murderers rationalize their participation, and how they live with themselves later.  With his new research, he reports the on the survivors, who […]

Dr. Rebecca Pekron recently received her doctorate from the Humanities Center at Johns Hopkins University.  Her dissertation “Que reste-t-il? [What remains?]”  Poetic Approaches to Immortality:  Baudelaire and After explores the concept of immortality in the funerary poetry of the nineteenth century.  Dr. Pekron graduated from Stanford in 2005 with a B.A. in Comparative Literature and […]

Monika Greenleaf is a comparative literature scholar who teaches in the Department of Slavic and the Department of Comparative Literature here at Stanford. She is of Polish extraction herself and specializes in Polish and Russian literature. She is the author of Pushkin and Romantic Fashion as well as editor of Russian Subjects: Nation, Empire, and […]