Peter Westmoreland (St. Petersburg College) writes in:
Looking for a podcast about philosophy and the 90s? Peter Westmoreland Podcast has you covered with Exile in 90sville on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Exile in 90sville uses philosophy to talk about the 90s. It also surveys 90s philosophy. Arranged like a CD, I publish a new “track” every week addressing a unique topic: punk rock values, postmodernism, time consciousness, technology, authenticity, epistemic violence, and more.
The best part: each track has a “B-side.” B-sides consist of interviews with specialists that take us from the 90s into the present. Some are professional philosophers/ academics who lend us their expertise like Laurie Shrage on feminist philosophy, Wendy Steiner on aesthetics, Steve Gimbel on philosophy of humor, and Brad Rosenheim on environmental science. Others are non-academics who work in the area like investigative journalist Zeke Faux on financial scams, brewer Davin Bartosch on beer, urban designer Josh Frank on city planning, and Ben Kirby on working in the Clinton White House.
Why a podcast on the 90s and philosophy? A few reasons.
First, I hope to get a conversation going about philosophy and the 90s. Why did philosophers care about what they cared about then? What stuck and what didn’t? How did 90s philosophy shape how we think now? What should we have seen then, but we missed?
Second, the 90s is just far back enough that we can reflect on it in a historical way while still remembering what it was like then. Many major figures from the 90s are still alive and crushing, while many of us younger folks came of age in the philosophy of that time. We should see what we think about the decade now before it’s too late.
Third, and personally, I published my book Hand and World with Palgrave MacMillan (the only book on handedness in the entirety of philosophy, I might add, and a worthwhile addition to your college library!), and I wanted a break from academic writing. I have some audio engineering skills I picked up in the 90s, so I thought: I can do a spirit of the 90s, do-it-yourself, non-corporate, artistic exercise in authenticity where I put an “album” together as a kind of gift I can share. So, I did. I hope you like it.
Dr. Peter Westmoreland is Professor of Ethics at St. Petersburg College, FL. He is the current president of the Florida Philosophical Association and past president of the Lighthearted Philosophers Society. He has published on handedness, race, gender, and history of philosophy, especially Rousseau and Descartes.
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