Death Masks of Dante, Nietzsche, Joyce, Beethoven and Other Greats

in Life, Literature, Philosophy | November 9th, 2011

Dante.deathmask

Death masks — they have been around since the days of King Tut in Ancient Egypt, and (per­haps) Agamem­non and Cas­san­dra in Ancient Greece. A way to remem­ber the char­ac­ter and expres­sions of the dead, this memo­r­i­al prac­tice con­tin­ued right down through the Mid­dle Ages when wax and plas­ter became the mate­ri­als of choice.

nietzsche death mask

Today, we’re left with facial imprints of impor­tant his­tor­i­cal lead­ers (Cromwell, Napoleon, Peter the Great); cul­tur­al giants (Dante up top, Shake­speare, Voltaire, New­ton, Beethoven, James Joyce, Niet­zsche); and some recent­ly more depart­ed icons (Hitch­cock and Tim­o­thy Leary).

joyce death mask

Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty hosts online a fair­ly large col­lec­tion of Life and Death Masks, and the good folks at Bib­liok­lept high­light masks of the intel­li­gent, pow­er­ful and famous on an ongo­ing basis. Unfor­tu­nate­ly these col­lec­tions skew almost entire­ly male — a sign of the times that came before us.

Above, you can see the masks of Niet­zsche, Dante, and Joyce mov­ing from top to bot­tom.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 8 ) |

Monty Python’s Best Philosophy Sketches

in Comedy, Philosophy | November 1st, 2011

From dead par­rots to The Mean­ing of Life, Mon­ty Python cov­ered a lot of ter­ri­to­ry. Edu­cat­ed at Oxford and Cam­bridge, the Pythons made a habit of weav­ing arcane intel­lec­tu­al ref­er­ences into the sil­li­est of sketch­es. A clas­sic exam­ple is “Mrs. Premise and Mrs. Con­clu­sion Vis­it Jean-Paul Sartre,” (above) from episode 27 of Mon­ty Python’s Fly­ing Cir­cus.

The sketch fea­tures writ­ing part­ners John Cleese as Mrs. Premise and Gra­ham Chap­man as Mrs. Con­clu­sion, gab­bing away in a laun­derette about how best to put down a budgie. Mrs. Premise sug­gests flush­ing it down the loo. “Ooh! No!” protests Mrs. Con­clu­sion. “You should­n’t do that. No that’s dan­ger­ous. Yes, they breed in the sew­ers, and even­tu­al­ly you get evil-smelling flocks of huge soiled bud­gies fly­ing out of peo­ple’s lava­to­ries infring­ing their per­son­al free­dom.”

From there the con­ver­sa­tion veers straight into Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Roads to Free­dom. It’s a clas­sic sketch–vintage Python–and you can read a tran­script here while watch­ing it above.

Anoth­er clas­sic is the “Philoso­pher’s Drink­ing Song,” shown above in a scene from Mon­ty Python Live at the Hol­ly­wood Bowl. The song was writ­ten and sung by Eric Idle. In the sketch, mem­bers of the phi­los­o­phy depart­ment at the “Uni­ver­si­ty of Wool­loomooloo” lead the audi­ence in singing, “Immanuel Kant was a real pis­sant who was very rarely sta­ble; Hei­deg­ger, Hei­deg­ger was a boozy beg­gar who could think you under the table…”

And one of our favorites: “The Philoso­phers’ Foot­ball Match” (above), a filmed sequence from Mon­ty Python Live at the Hol­ly­wood Bowl, pit­ting the Ancient Greeks against the Ger­mans, with Con­fu­cius as ref­er­ee. The sketch was orig­i­nal­ly broad­cast in 1972 in a two-part West Ger­man tele­vi­sion spe­cial, Mon­ty Python’s Fliegen­der Zirkus.

When you’re done laugh­ing, you can dive deep into phi­los­o­phy here with our col­lec­tion of 55 Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es online.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stephen Hawk­ing Sings Mon­ty Python’s “Galaxy Song”: Hear the New­ly-Released Sin­gle

John Cleese’s Phi­los­o­phy of Cre­ativ­i­ty: Cre­at­ing Oases for Child­like Play

John Cleese on How “Stu­pid Peo­ple Have No Idea How Stu­pid They Are” (a.k.a. the Dun­ning-Kruger Effect)

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

Bertrand Russell Explains How Smoking Paradoxically Saved His Life

in Life, Philosophy | October 28th, 2011

In 1959, Bertrand Rus­sell, then push­ing 90, could still give a good inter­view. We have pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured vin­tage video of Rus­sell send­ing a mes­sage to peo­ple liv­ing 1,000 years in the future and also con­tem­plat­ing the exis­tence/non-exis­tence of God. Now comes more footage from ’59, and this time he tells us all about how smok­ing a pipe saved his life. It makes for a good anec­dote (get more on his near-death expe­ri­ence here), though not an endorse­ment for tak­ing up the habit.…

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bertrand Russell’s Ten Com­mand­ments for Liv­ing in a Healthy Democ­ra­cy

Bertrand Rus­sell & Oth­er Big Thinkers in BBC Lec­ture Series (Free)

Down­load Free Cours­es from Famous Philoso­phers: From Bertrand Rus­sell to Michel Fou­cault

Bertrand Rus­sell Lists His 20 Favorite Words in 1958 (and What Are Some of Yours?)

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

The Fall by Albert Camus Animated

in Literature, Philosophy | October 11th, 2011

We have the ani­ma­tion of Ancient clas­sics cov­ered. Oedi­pus star­ring veg­eta­bles? Check. An ani­ma­tion of Pla­to’s Cave Alle­go­ry nar­rat­ed by Orson Welles? Check. Anoth­er ver­sion of the Cave Alle­go­ry made with clay­ma­tion? Yes, we have that too.

Now it’s time for some­thing a lit­tle more mod­ern — Mike McCub­bins offers an ani­mat­ed adap­ta­tion of Albert Camus’ clas­sic, The Fall, pub­lished in 1957, the same year that Camus won the Nobel Prize for Lit­er­a­ture for his work that “illu­mi­nates the prob­lems of the human con­science in our times.” Give McCub­bins five min­utes and he’ll give you the visu­al essence of the philo­soph­i­cal nov­el. You can watch it here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es (part of our larg­er col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es)

Wal­ter Kaufmann’s Lec­tures on Niet­zsche, Kierkegaard and Sartre (1960)

Sartre, Hei­deg­ger, Niet­zsche: Three Philoso­phers in Three Hours

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Slavoj Zizek Takes the Stage at Occupy Wall Street

in Current Affairs, Philosophy, Politics | October 11th, 2011

When Slove­ni­a’s hip Marxist/Lacanian crit­i­cal the­o­rist takes cen­ter stage at a Wall Street protest, it’s news for a cul­ture site. No doubt. How can we not observe a rare moment of prax­is? But, what it all means for the Occu­py Wall Street move­ment, we’ll let you wres­tle with that. Part 2 appears here. H/T Bib­liok­lept.

Relat­ed Stuff: It looks like the 2005 doc­u­men­tary Zizek! has found its way on YouTube, and if you want to under­stand the essence of Occu­py Wall Street, it’s worth lis­ten­ing to this recent episode of Plan­et Mon­ey. They do a good job of demys­ti­fy­ing things…

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 4 ) |

Noam Chomsky & Michel Foucault Debate Human Nature & Power (1971)

in Philosophy | October 7th, 2011

Once again, we’re head­ing back to 1971. Yes­ter­day we had Dick Cavet­t’s 1971 inter­view with George Har­ri­son. Today, it’s the clash of two intel­lec­tu­al titans, Noam Chom­sky and Michel Fou­cault. In ’71, at the height of the Viet­nam War, the Amer­i­can lin­guist and French historian/social the­o­rist appeared on Dutch TV to debate a fun­da­men­tal ques­tion: Is there such a thing as innate human nature? Or are we shaped by expe­ri­ences and the pow­er of cul­tur­al and social insti­tu­tions around us?

40 years lat­er, you can find the clas­sic debate on YouTube. If you need sub­ti­tles, make sure you turn on the cap­tions func­tion at the bot­tom of the video.

A full tran­script of the debate can be read online, or you can pur­chase a copy in book for­mat. Final­ly, a recent BBC pro­gram revis­its  and ana­lyzes the Chom­sky-Fou­cault encounter. H/T Metafil­ter

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Online Cours­es in Phi­los­o­phy

Jacques Lacan Speaks; Zizek Pro­vides Free Cliffs Notes

Down­load Free Cours­es from Famous Philoso­phers: From Bertrand Rus­sell to Michel Fou­cault

Noam Chom­sky vs. William F. Buck­ley, 1969

Ali G and Noam Chom­sky Talk Lin­guis­tics

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 8 ) |

Jacques Derrida Deconstructs American Attitudes

in Philosophy | October 3rd, 2011

Jacques Der­ri­da, the founder of Decon­struc­tion, was some­thing of an aca­d­e­m­ic rock star dur­ing his day. He packed audi­to­ri­ums when­ev­er and wher­ev­er he spoke. Films were made about him. And a gen­er­a­tion of aca­d­e­mics churned out Der­ridean decon­struc­tions of lit­er­ary texts. All of this made Der­ri­da’s star rise ever high­er. But whether it did much good for Comp Lit, French and Eng­lish pro­grams across the US, that’s anoth­er sto­ry.

But we digress from the main point here. Our friend­ly French philoso­pher spent a fair amount of time teach­ing in the US and got acquaint­ed with Amer­i­can atti­tudes. Some­times, he says, we can be manip­u­la­tive and util­i­tar­i­an. What exact­ly do you mean Mr. Der­ri­da? Can you please elab­o­rate? Of course, he does above.

Note: If you aren’t quite clear on what decon­struc­tion is all about, you can watch two lec­tures devot­ed to the sub­ject (here and here) from Yale’s course on Lit­er­ary The­o­ry. Enti­tled “Intro­duc­tion to The­o­ry of Lit­er­a­ture,” this course, taught by Paul Fry, is list­ed in the Lit­er­a­ture sec­tion of our big col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es.

H/T Bib­liok­lept

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jacques Lacan Speaks; Zizek Pro­vides Free Cliffs Notes

Down­load Free Cours­es from Famous Philoso­phers: From Bertrand Rus­sell to Michel Fou­cault

Sartre, Hei­deg­ger, Niet­zsche: Three Philoso­phers in Three Hours

Learn 40 Lan­guages (includ­ing French) for Free

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 6 ) |

The History of Philosophy … Without Any Gaps

in Philosophy | August 31st, 2011

On Mon­day, we told you where you can down­load Free Cours­es from Top Philoso­phers (Fou­cault, Sear­le, Rus­sell and the rest). As the day went along, our list grew thanks to read­er sug­ges­tions, and we also dis­cov­ered anoth­er promis­ing resource — a pod­cast called “The His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy With­out Any Gaps,” cre­at­ed by Peter Adam­son, Pro­fes­sor of Ancient and Medieval Phi­los­o­phy at King’s Col­lege Lon­don:

Begin­ning with the ear­li­est ancient thinkers, the series will look at the ideas and lives of the major philoso­phers (even­tu­al­ly cov­er­ing in detail such giants as Pla­to, Aris­to­tle, Avi­cen­na, Aquinas, Descartes, and Kant) as well as the less­er-known fig­ures of the tra­di­tion.

That’s what Adam­son promis­es, and he does­n’t dis­ap­point. Over the past 34 months, Adam­son has pro­duced 136 episodes, each about 20 min­utes long, cov­er­ing the Pre­So­crat­ics (Pythago­ras, Zeno, Par­menides, etc) and then Socrates, Pla­to and Aris­to­tle. That’s rough­ly 45 hours of audio, and there’s no telling how many more hours of audio will bring us to the mod­ern peri­od. The more, the bet­ter, we say.

You can access all episodes via these links: iTunes — RSS Feed — Web Site. Or find oth­er free phi­los­o­phy cours­es in our big col­lec­tion of Free Cours­es Online.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Free Online Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es

Take First-Class Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es Any­where with Free Oxford Pod­casts

Learn The His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy in 247 Pod­casts (With More to Come)

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 8 ) |

« Go Back — More in this category... »
Quantcast