Machinic Unconscious Happy Hour

Dr. Ivan Marquez, a professor in the Philosophy department at Texas State University joined me this week to discuss political philosophy through the lens of the enlightenment, modernity, and postmodernity. We discuss theory from thinkers such as Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Martin Heidegger, Immanuel Kant, Jacques Lacan, and Karl Marx. We start with a introduction to modernity, trace it's origins in the Enlightenment, and the postmodern reaction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Baudrillard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Lacan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Fran%C3%A7ois_Lyotard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Derrida

I really enjoyed sitting and talking with Dr. Justin Hart about his work as a roboticist. We primarily focused on his research, but also touched on topics like the uncanny valley and philosophy of the mind. http://justinhart.net/ https://robotics.utexas.edu/people

Dr. Cindy Royal is a very influential figure in my educational journey. I took several of her new media courses while pursuing an M.A. in Mass Communication at Texas State University. She is the reason I joined Twitter and I'll credit her as my social media sensei. As such, it was interesting to circle back around to the beginning of it all with her. We talked a little about how we first got into technology, how social media has evolved, and impacted not only politics, but culture as a whole. http://www.masscomm.txstate.edu/people/faculty/cindy-royal.html http://cindyroyal.com/ http://sxtxstate.com/ Twitter: @CindyRoyal

Strap yourselves in, because this is a long one. I had an awesome time talking comic books and hip-hop with Confucius Jones & Fresh, aka Those Damn Comic Book Guys. This dynamic duo also hosts a show on KUTX 98.9 called the Breaks. We debate the merits and pitfalls of serialized storytelling & compare notes on the comic scene. The podcast wraps up with a little hip-hop talk. http://kutx.org/category/the-breaks https://soundcloud.com/tdcomicbookguys https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/those-damn-comic-book-guys/id1041738779?mt=2 @TheBreaksonKUTX @tdcomicbookguys @confuciusjones @fresh_knight

This week I had a supermassive schizoid discussion with Dr. John Kormendy about black holes and other stellar phenomena. Dr. Kormendy is well known for his work on supermassive black holes at the centers of massive galaxies, he has done substantial work in the study of galactic bulges, the evolution of elliptical galaxies and dark matter halos of galaxies. We unpacked a little about stellar lifecycles, dark matter, neutrinos, and other topics related to black holes themselves. http://chandra.as.utexas.edu/ https://experts.utexas.edu/john_kormendy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kormendy

This week I sat down with David Kaelin from Austin's own Classic Game Fest. The Classic Game Fest is an event held every summer with next year's scheduled for July 28 & 29 2018. We talked a little about the beginnings of the fest and it's growth over the years. David helped me identify a long lost game, Yars' Revenge, and we delved into some the strange story surrounding the first ET game for Atari. It was validating to see that I'm not the only one and that my love of 16 bit gaming and side scrolling action are shared by the retrogaming community. http://classicgamefest.com/ https://www.youtube.com/user/classicgamefest @classicgamefest https://gameovervideogames.com/

Barbara Morgan, Executive Director of the Austin Film Festival joined me this week. We talked a little bit about the history of the festival, some of this year's panelists that she's excited about, and other stories. The festival takes place October 26 - November 2. For more information checkout their website at: https://austinfilmfestival.com/ I also highly recommend checking out On Story http://www.onstory.tv/ iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/austin-film-festivals-on-story-podcast/id580567383?mt=2 Twitter: @austinfilmfest http://www.thewittliffcollections.txstate.edu/

Scott Williams returns to the podcast for another round of schizoid mania. This time, he brought along Skye Gilbert. We went down the rabbit hole discussing the events in Charlottesville, free speech, the limits of reason, and delved a bit into cryptocurrency near the end.

This week I sat down to talk democracy in the workplace and the science behind brewing with Andy Martinec, head brewer at Black Star Co-Op. http://www.blackstar.coop/

Dr. Robert Kane and I sat down to unpack the topic of free will. Kane is a noted proponent of what's referred to as Libertarian Free Will and has written extensively on the topic. He is author of seven books and sixty articles on the philosophy of mind and action, ethical theory and social ethics, the theory of value and philosophy of religion, including Free Will and Values (1985), Through the Moral Maze (1994), The Significance of Free Will (1996), A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will (2005). Editor of The Oxford Handbook of Free Will (2002) among other anthologies and a multiple contributor to the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. http://www.roberthilarykane.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kane_(philosopher) https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/philosophy/faculty/kanerh