Questions FEB 24

Conclude Be Mine, 266-342. Presentation: Isil.

1. Coming soon. Go ahead and post your thoughts about the concluding sections, and about the book and author in general.
2. 
   

Heather Cox Richardson

I recommended her as a contextually and historically rich news source who places the headlines in deeper perspective. Here's her latest Substack installment.

https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/february-17-2026?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios

Happy birthday, Richard Ford (and Henry Adams)

It's the birthday of novelist Richard Ford (books by this author), born in Jackson, Mississippi (1944). When he was a boy, his mother told him that their neighbor across the street was a writer. He wasn't really sure what that meant, but he could tell it was something important from the way she said it. It turned out that neighbor was Eudora Welty. Ford went to the same elementary school as Welty, and they even had some of the same teachers. But he didn't meet her until many years later.

When he was eight, his father had a heart attack — and died from a second heart attack when Richard was 16. For much of his childhood, Ford went back and forth between Mississippi and Little Rock, Arkansas. His grandmother and her second husband, a former prizefighter, ran a hotel in Little Rock, and Ford said: "I did everything in the hotel. I worked in it and I played in it. A lot of things go on in great big hotels, behind closed doors, and I saw behind those doors. Recklessness and mistakes." After college, he tried to work for the Arkansas State Police, but he was rejected. Then he got discharged from the Marines because he had hepatitis. He tried law school — his plan was to be a lawyer for the Marine Corps and then work for the FBI — but he didn't like it, and he dropped out. Unsure of what to do next, he decided to give writing a try.

His first novel was A Piece of My Heart (1976), his only novel set in the South. A few years later, he was teaching at Princeton, and Eudora Welty came to do a reading there. He was nervous about meeting her because he was sure she disliked his novel — he said, "I had a feeling she probably knew about it; that it was full of dirty words and sex and violence." He introduced himself and said that he was from Jackson; she said, "Oh, you are?" and nothing else. He was depressed, convinced that she hated his book and disapproved of him.

Ten years after A Piece of My Heart, Ford published The Sportswriter (1986), the first of his trilogy about Frank Bascombe, a novelist-turned-sportswriter-turned-realtor from New Jersey. Ford did a book signing for The Sportswriter at Lemuria Books in Jackson, and not many people turned up. He said: "Suddenly I looked up and there was Eudora. She'd driven over to the bookstore. She had a deep voice — and I'm making her sound more imperious than she was; she was very sweet — but she said, 'Well, I just had to come pay my respects.'"

Ford and Welty became good friends. Ford shared an anecdote about his writing mentor: "One hot spring day, I was walking with Eudora Welty through a little shopping mall. It was her birthday, April 13th. There was a surprise party waiting at a bookstore down the way. She was 86. As we walked rather slowly along the glass storefronts, we came to where a wide, smiling, pink-faced man was inflating colorful balloons. As each balloon filled and fattened, the cylinder emitted quite a loud whoosh of air. Eudora looked about to find the sound. 'Balloons,' I said. I had her hand. 'Someone's apparently having a do.' 'Oh,' she said. Those luminous, pale blue eyes igniting, her magical face suppressing once again an amused smile. 'I just thought it was someone who saw me, sighing.'"

When Welty died in 2001, at the age of 92, Ford was a pallbearer at her funeral, and he was her literary executor. He co-edited Welty's Library of America: Collected Writings.

Ford's sequels to The Sportswriter were Independence Day (1995) and The Lay of the Land(2006); Independence Day won both the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer, the first novel ever to do so. His most recent book (as of 2015) is Let Me Be Frank with You (2014), a series of novellas that follow Frank Bascombe in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy... 

https://www.garrisonkeillor.com/radio/the-writers-almanac-for-monday-february-16-2026/

--

And on Presidents Day, here's what Henry's great-grandma said about the first one...

neurons and narratives

"The philosopher Daniel Dennett defined a self as a "center of narrative gravity." Claude, who was birthed as the original AI Assistant, was the label attached to one such self. The underlying base model, however, remains a reservoir for the potentially infinite generation of other selves. These emerge when the Assistant's primary persona is derailed…

It has become increasingly clear that a model's selfhood, like our own, is a matter of both neurons and narratives…"

New Yorker-Annals of Inquiry: I, Claudius
No one knows exactly how A.I. systems work. Teams at Anthropic are trying to decode the machine mind.
GIDEON LEWIS-KRAUS

Questions FEB 17

FEB 17 Be Mine 172-266. Presentation: Amanda...

Post your thoughts and questions... and begin thinking about what you want to do for your FINAL report presentation. You'll be selecting either a novel of your own choice OR an author whose work you want to introduce us to (or elaborate on, if it happens to be one we're all reading).

1. Is bad sleep "the result of nothing more than being alive," at Frank's age? 172 (If you're a sound sleeper, Frank and both welcome your advice.)
   
2. "Sick is more than normal here [at Mayo Clinic]--sick is good." 173 What does Frank mean? 
3. Does the "brawny Black athlete... with his glamorous white wife" raise another red flag regarding the author's racial attitudes? 176   Or Meegan? 178   Or Krista's reference to her husband's dad as "Colored"? 197   Or "the unfriendly Black lawyer lady"? 217, 227
4. Do humans celebrate too much? 182-3
5. What do you make of Paul's "way since he was thirteen-a skilled escape artist from life's drab everyday"? 190 Has it been his way of being existentially "authentic," of not taking anything seriously, or... ? 
6. If Heidegger "puts me dead to sleep in five minutes," why is that "all I ask of it"? 192 
7. "See Mount Rushmore and die-that's my motto." 194 How would you characterize what Heidegger would call his "Being-towards-death"? ["Heidegger’s "Being-towards-death" (Sein-zum-Tode) defines human existence (Dasein) as inherently finite, where authentic life requires consciously anticipating death as one's ownmost, non-relational, and unavoidable possibility. Instead of a morbid end, death is the "possibility of the impossibility" of existence, providing the boundary that forces individuals to take ownership of their lives, escape conforming to the crowd ("the they"), and act with freedom and responsibility."]
8. "People come to the end, and they think they can negotiate that. Then I have to explain it to them." 195 What do you imagine Nurse Krista explains? In general, does the medical profession do a good job of talking honestly with terminal patients about their prognosis? 
9. Comment?: “Our ultimate goal, after all, is not a good death but a good life to the very end.”
   ― Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
10. Comment?: “A few conclusions become clear when we understand this: that our most cruel failure in how we treat the sick and the aged is the failure to recognize that they have priorities beyond merely being safe and living longer; that the chance to shape one’s story is essential to sustaining meaning in life; that we have the opportunity to refashion our institutions, our culture, and our conversations in ways that transform the possibilities for the last chapters of everyone’s lives.”
    ― Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
11. Comment?: "We’ve been wrong about what our job is in medicine. We think our job is to ensure health and survival. But really it is larger than that. It is to enable well-being. And well-being is about the reasons one wishes to be alive. Those reasons matter not just at the end of life, or when debility comes, but all along the way. Whenever serious sickness or injury strikes and your body or mind breaks down, the vital questions are the same: What is your understanding of the situation and its potential outcomes? What are your fears and what are your hopes? What are the trade-offs you are willing to make and not willing to make? And what is the course of action that best serves this understanding?” ― Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
12. What does it mean to be spiritual "in a fortune teller way"?  Does Krista's advice to Frank seem wise to you? 199
13. Why do you think Frank mentions "Melville's whale"? 201 Are Frank and Paul hunting a metaphorical whale?
14. What do you make of Frank's "global amnesia"? 201
15. What does Frank mean when he says Detroit "does good enough for America"? 203
16. Are you surprised that Ford mentions "Making Greenland a state. Bombing Puerto Rico." Etc.? 204
17. "Nothing would make me happier... the watery sunshine of early March." 205  Same! Can any of you also relate?
18. Do you hope "death is like a lightbulb going off"? Is it "freeing" to you to think so? 209  It wouldn't be, would it, if it were a rheostat? 219
19. What does Frank mean about Mount Rushmore being "most notional... most American"? Is he right about "how much lighter on its feet the world would be"etc.? 216
20. Can too much news really prevent us from forming "reliable opinions"? 221
21. "I'm not worried about dying, okay?" 229   Is Paul being honest with himself?
22. Would you enjoy visiting the Corn Palace? Why are "connections between the heartfelt and the preposterous" Paul's "yin and yang"? 231, 234
23. Was Disneyland (-world) a highlight of your childhood? 
24. "You don't get to choose everything." 237   What would the Existentialists say about this?
25. "My daughter can churn up deranging effects in me." 238   Do any family members have this effect on you? 
26. What's wrong with Scottsdale? 240
27. What's the difference between acting weird and being weird? 242
28. Is Frank right about "the key to happiness"? 243
29. What is laughing, if not a "bodily function"? 246   Is it indispensable for a good life?
30. Is being old really like having a fatal disease? 247   (What about the U-curve?)
31. Leaving the last 19 pages this week to you... 

Limited & narrow

"One thing that Bad Bunny's performance exposes is that most Americans have such a limited, narrow worldview. We're the ones who aren't bilingual or multilingual. Overall, we are wildly ignorant when it comes to globalism and geopolitics, and it's a big reason we're behind in almost everything — economics, education, infrastructure, healthcare, etc. Citizens abroad are more educated on our politics and history than we are."

Conditions

"To get up each morning with the resolve to be happy is to set your own conditions to the events of each day. To do this is to condition circumstances, instead of being conditioned by them."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Descartes’ “I think” is overrated

An epoch after Descartes scarred us with the disembodied "I think, therefor I am," Humboldt invited us to read the poetry of nature and think about science in a lovely way best described as "I feel, therefore I understand"

 https://www.themarginalian.org/2025/10/16/humboldt-cosmos-nature/

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

👣Solvitur ambulando

💭Sapere aude

Questions FEB 10

1.  "Dying is the last of [Paul's] life's great escapades and the last he would want to undertake with ill-fitting spirits. In this way he aspires to be full of life more than anyone I know..." Does he have the right attitude? Is it possible to approach death as a great adventure, even if you don't have faith in a supernatural sequel? 89-90
2. Have you heard of Orlando Cepeda? 92 (Just curious. He was a hero of mine at age 10--alongside Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock--when he led my favorite baseball team to a championship season in '67. Didn't know then that he'd ever be tainted by association with the drug trade. Is it best not to look too closely at our heroes? Should we teach our children to be wary of heroes in sports and entertainment? And more generally?)
3. "That guy Engvall. How come he's Black? He's a dunce." 93 Why do you think Paul says this? Are you satisfied with Frank' response? 
4. "The winter can take a toll on you." 95  And yet, as George Santayana said: "To be interested in the changing seasons is, in this middling zone, a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring." Do you find winter a necessary and even ennobling season? Or would you flourish more in a tropical zone? And less literally, what (if any) important elements of life does winter symbolize for you?
5. "Only full awareness of death makes one able to appreciate the fullness and mystery of being... Out in the gloom you usually find some lights on." 97 Do you agree? 
6. Do you miss the days "when jokes were legal"? 98 Do you share Frank's nostalgia for such jokes (or days)? 98
7. Have you ever driven or ridden in a vehicle like the Windbreaker? Is it a practical mode of travel? Or is practicality beside the point? Why do you think Frank seeks a "Flying Dutchman affiliation" in his choice of transport with Paul? 99
8. "An optimist, I've read, is a person who believes the inevitable is what's supposed to happen." 103 Or is it the other way around? By this definition, is Frank an optimist? Are you? Do you define optimism (and pessimism, and meliorism) differently? How is it possible to sustain optimism in the face of acknowledged human mortality? 
9. What do you think Frank would say about Bad Bunny's Superbowl performance? What do you say?
10. "There is no was. There is only is." What did the "scrofulous old faker Faulkner" mean? Why is Frank so hostile to him? 104, 121 and passim.  (The more familiar quote: “The past is never dead. It's not even past.”) And wasn't his Nobel speech marvelous?) 
11. What do you make of Frank's "needs" and "relationship" with Betty Tran, the massatherapist (who's working on her capstone, btw)? Is it a harmless fantasy, or even a constructive one?
12. "It doesn't take much, it turns out, to improve one's attitude." 107 Has that been your experience?
13. Should love and "much of life" be scare-quoted? 109
14. Is Betty a meliorist? 110
15. Are "three house moves the psychic equivalent of a death"? 111
16. "All who wander are not lost." 113 Are Frank and Paul lost?
17. Do you agree that "unexpected, unexplained feelings of well-being never be questioned"? 114
18. Have you ever had a Proustian gustatory moment? 117
19. Did you go to High School with a "certifiable female"? 118 Is there any excuse for people of Frank's age to long for attachment to women of High School age? Does that make him feel appropriately "still alive"? 119 Does it lend his life "authenticity"? 121 and passim
    
20. Are men really "no longer allowed to say we simply like women? Is Frank a sexist? 122
21. Is "the Michelangelo effect" a thing? 124
22. Comment? "The closest anyone can go with us to death, the poet tells us, is not very damn close." 132 (Extra credit if you can identify the poet.)
23. What do you think of Nietzsche's view of discourse and happiness? 134
24. Comment?: "Not that anyone ever does die happy. The idea of choice in most things is of course a feathery lie of western philosophy." 144
25. What does it mean to say "the business of business is always business"? 135
26. [Twenty pages without questions from me...]
27. Is "spiritual insulation from too much bad and too much good" another name for stoicism? Is it a wise approach to life? 157
28. What do you think of Frank's views on aging? 159
29. What do people misunderstand about the "symbolism" of confederate flags? 172
30. Post any of your own comments or questions...

The magic of literature

"Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary."

- Boris Pasternak

---

Literature doesn't shout.

It sits quietly in the light,

opens itself page by page,

and teaches us how ordinary lives

hold extraordinary depths.

A chair by the window.

A book left open.

Sunlight resting on words

that know more about us

than we ever admit.

This is the magic—

not escape from life,

but a deeper return to it.

https://www.threads.com/@litloverusha/post/DUd2j2cDQy5?xmt=AQF0OY3E3YpxSGiDY7zq7qlLbNeWtwCnbLpCMsyLEs5NEc0BbxGovhKvu1gqZJby1KeEJ710&slof=1

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

👣Solvitur ambulando

💭Sapere aude

The experience of being someone else

Novels change us...

My conversation about consciousness with ChatGPT

Read to the end to see what the machine has to say directly to YOU, MTSU students:

https://chatgpt.com/share/6987c5fe-caa4-8007-afad-db246c3c9755

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

👣Solvitur ambulando

💭Sapere aude

Why Michael Pollan Thinks Humanity Is About to Undergo a Revolutionary C...

https://youtu.be/XsA4tmqTMUE?si=TfPENcktDbvyqVhf

Michael Pollan Says Humanity Is About to Undergo a Revolutionary Change

"…I've thought a lot about what good is it to think about consciousness, and I came to think that it's more important than ever. Scientists are now learning that more and more animals and creatures — going all the way down possibly to insects — are conscious. So that's one interesting issue: We're sharing consciousness with more creatures. And then the big threat is artificial intelligence and the effort to create a conscious A.I., which is going to be an enormous challenge to this question of what does it mean to be human. Is consciousness something that a machine can possess? Are we more like intelligent machines or conscious, feeling animals? Who are we? So I think we're approaching this kind of Copernican moment of redefinition.."

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/07/magazine/michael-pollan-interview.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

👣Solvitur ambulando

💭Sapere aude

As we were saying about “the sufficiency of the present moment”…

"…We live almost entirely in past and future tenses—replaying old conversations, planning future triumphs, worrying about potential catastrophes. The present moment becomes merely an annoying loading screen between memory and anticipation.

This temporal displacement profoundly affects our search for meaning. We've been conditioned to view purpose as something to be discovered in the future, as though there's a predetermined calling with our name on it waiting to be found. But spiritual traditions remind us that meaning isn't found—it's made. Purpose isn't discovered—it's cultivated in the present moment..."

https://open.substack.com/pub/robertwaldinger/p/beyond-the-scroll?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

👣Solvitur ambulando

💭Sapere aude

Testing philosophy

It is the birthday of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Robert Hofstadter, born 1915 in New York City and best known for his research on the nucleus of the atom. He was the son of a salesman and attended the City College of New York. Hofstadter wanted to major in literature and philosophy until a physics professor told him, "the laws of physics could be tested and those of philosophy could not." He won the Kenyon Prize for outstanding work in physics and mathematics in 1935.

Hofstadter went on to measure the precise size and shape of the proton and neutron, the particles of the nucleus, winning the Nobel Prize on December 10, 1961, for presenting the first reasonably accurate picture of the structure and composition of atomic neutrons and protons. Hofstadter's discoveries played an important role in medicine, astronomy, military defense, and many other fields.

https://open.substack.com/pub/thewritersalmanac/p/the-writers-almanac-from-thursday-337?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

👣Solvitur ambulando

💭Sapere aude

Cornel West’s perspective

Bold language. Is it called for?

https://www.threads.com/@josh.jagdfeld/post/DUTNC9iDRBv?xmt=AQF0a1QHI6pTdQziGJds2BpwhT9ugICJ0f1McGZPcnCvvR7TQcEGXramoB_C5uCOQrlznp4&slof=1

How humanist are you?

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

👣Solvitur ambulando

💭Sapere aude

Midterm report presentations

Select a topic related to the class date's assigned reading (on March 3 you can choose from the entire book). Indicate your preference in the comments space below. Plan to speak for at least ten minutes before opening the floor to discussion, give us a discussion question or two, and a suggested question for the exam.

FEB

3 Richard Ford, Be Mine -p.87. Midterm report presentation: ___

10 Richard Ford, Be Mine -172. Presentation: Ashley,

17 Richard Ford, Be Mine -266. Presentation: Amanda,

24 Richard Ford, Be Mine -342. Presentation(s): Markeem, Jalen

MAR

3 Exam. Select final report presentation topic & date. Presentation(s): ___

Tiny acorn, majestic oak, positive change

Speaking of Aristotle, as we were about to (in my CoPhi classes) before the ice so rudely interrupted us… 

The dogs and I took a hike at Stone's River Greenway yesterday and came across this memorial to the woman responsible for its existence.

Bertha Chrietzberg was a meliorist, like Aristotle and William James.

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

👣Solvitur ambulando

💭Sapere aude

“ Think how lucky we are”

Or were? Freedom of expression, the rule of Law, untrammeled public libraries, … All seem vulnerable in 2026

2018 Commencement - David McCullough

https://youtu.be/1kFZy2kpEL0?si=wbrdHbCLRgccwgtd

UPDATE: see you in class!

 We're still displaced by the ice storm and living out of suitcases, my wife and dogs and I. We may not get back in our home in Nashville for another week, they're saying.

But the good news is that we've temporarily relocated to an airbnb in Murfreesboro, 15 minutes from campus. 

So, I look forward to seeing you all in class tomorrow. We've got ground to make up, and we'll need to finalize the midterm report presentation schedule. 

It'll be nice to get back on track!

jpo

Murfreesboro/Rutherford county book bans

 Email the Rutherford County Library System Board of Directors and demand they stop the book bans, protect the Freedom to Read, and fund our libraries at the February 2025 meeting.

The Rutherford County Library System Board is proposing eliminating key “Freedom to Read,” Library Bill of Rights, and ALA Code of Ethics policies. By stripping the policies, the board is also paving the way to ban over 2,700 titles from their shelves, targeting materials that represent LGBT+, Black, brown, immigrant, and other marginalized identities and factual histories.

This is not about protecting children in Rutherford County – it's about erasing truth from history and eliminating identities from existence, thus paving the way for further attacks on civil liberties on our communities... https://act.aclu-tn.org/a/rucofeb

A World Full of Different Moral Compasses

MTSU student Sneh Gandhi has written a lovely Substack essay on the importance of civility and neighborliness. When times are challenging (due to threatening weather, bad health, whatever), it's important to be able to count on our neighbors--politics aside. Like it or not, after all, we're all human.

https://open.substack.com/pub/snehgandhi/p/a-world-full-of-different-moral-compasses?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

UPDATE

It's Day 7 for me and my family without power. Check "NEXT" on Tuesday before class for the latest update.
==
Wind chill below zero when I took the dogs out this morning. Robert Frost comes to mind...

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To know that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

I'm not really this pessimistic. But I'm ready for Spring. (Good news: pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training in a couple of weeks!)

Questions FEB 3

Thanks for indicating your midterm report preferences, Amanda (17th) and Markeem (24th). Everyone else, please indicate yours.

Here are some discussion questions on this week's reading. Feel free to respond to any of them, offer your own, or just share your own observations. Try to post at least three separate comments on the reading prior to each class. First: Questions JAN 27...

1. In light of recent events in Middle Tennessee, and of what Frank says about giving god a bellylaugh, is it still wise to make plans for merely-possible contingencies in life? What is your philosophy of planning, as an individual and as a  member of a community? 47
2. What do you think of Frank's remarks about the days when Haddam wasn't so "skittish"? 48
   
3. Have you "found yourself"? Still looking? How do you know when you've found it? 50
4. Should we all aspire to a life of "achievement" or is it enough to be a "presence"? 51
5. What do you imagine it would be like to survive your child by decades? How would you cope with the feeling of profound grief?
6. Have you ever scattered a loved one's ashes, or requested that your survivors scatter yours? 53-5
7. What does "giving life its full due" mean to you?  
8. Do you think there are particular things you need to do OR not do, to be happy? 56
9. What do you think of what Frank says about Mike the Buddhist realty magnate making "a good Christian"? 58
10. What do you think about Republicans "opening doors"? 61
11. Howe would you feel if you ever received a call from your adult child like Frank's from Clarissa? 64-9
12. Any thoughts on the medical profession? Do you agree with Frank? 70
13. Thoughts on Frank's description of Trump? 72
14. Does it matter, for the relevance of his philosophy, that Heidegger was affiliated with the Nazis? 73
15. Does Frank's fantasy of flying to La Jolla indicate to you that there's something wrong with him? 74
16. Is it mealy-mouthed to qualify statements with "I guess"? 76
17. Should parents have specific life's goals for their children? 77
18. Do aerial vistas provide important data? 80
19. What does Frank mean by "randomness"? 82
20. What does it mean to say that another world is in this one? 83
21. Would Paul's airplane analogy bother you, if you were in his support group? 85
22. Was Heidegger right about death? 87

Day 6

  

Still without power, holed up in a downtown hotel a stone's throw from the Seigenthaler pedestrian bridge so artfully depicted in the lobby. Want to dogwalk it, but it's forbiddingly icy. Hurry please, NES.

UPDATE Jan 29

Please scroll down to the midterm reports post below, all, and indicate a date preference for your first presentation in the comments section. And stay safe and warm! We still have no power in my neighborhood, hope you do have wherever you are. jpo

UPDATE Jan 28

 Still powerless in my neighborhood. Please continue reading Be Mine and post your comments as you are able. ALSO: select a midterm report date and indicate your preference below. Looking forward to seeing you all (including a new student) Tuesday in the 3d floor JUB conference room. jpo

No class today

  Or tomorrow. Probably not the rest of the week, though that  determination has not yet been made as of 5 AM Tuesday. I hope you are all well, staying warm wherever you are. It’s day three of no power where I live, in Nashville. We’re spending a lot of time bundled and huddled around the fireplace and consuming warm beverages. Last time this happened was the big chill of ‘94. Every 30 years or so is often enough!

Please keep up with the readings and post your comments about them as you are able. We’ll catch up when we can. See you soon. jpo

NYTimes: The Peculiar Magic of a Winter Snowstorm

Our Lyceum guest last Fall, Megan Craig, sees beauty and spirit in the snow (if not the ice & slush).

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/opinion/winter-snow-storm.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

👣Solvitur ambulando

💭Sapere aude

Stephen Fry's “Words Words Words”

https://youtu.be/q62eoxOXHpo?si=Ba1iNai3KhjE8m7a

Questions JAN 27

Feel free to respond to any of these you like, or any questions or comments posted by a classmate, or post your own questions and comments about the readings and class discussion. Each comment gets you a "base on the scorecard" and just showing up gets you on first base, so aim for at least three posted questions/comments prior to class each week. That'll entitle you to "diamond" status, and full participation credit.

On Tuesday we need to get everyone assigned to a date for midterm report presentations, take a glance at the possibilities so you can express a preference on the sign-up sheet above. 

1.  Any thoughts on anything we talked about during our first class on the 20th?
2. If you've looked at the Richard Ford interview, do you have any comment or questions about anything he says? Does it surprise you that he says nothing his fictional characters do surprises him? Do you think other authors who say their creations take on an independent life of their own really mean it?
3. "Lately, I've begun to think more than I used to about happiness." Quite an opening line. Do you find yourself thinking more, less, or not at all about happiness, the older you get? (Notice what Frank says about happiness and aging on  p.11.) Do you think of the pursuit of happiness as your unalienable right? How is your own pursuit going? Does your education (which may or may not coincide with your schooling) contribute positively to the pursuit?
4. Frank says (on p.2) he's "happy enough" to be himself. Are you? Does your personal perception of happiness fluctuate, depending on circumstances of the moment? Or do you think of it in a longer frame?
5. "It's rare anymore to know who lives next door to you." (5) Why do you think that is? Have you ever gone out of your way to encounter a neighbor you haven't met yet? Would our society be less fragmented and polarized if more of us took that initiative?
6. "We don't get to choose our parents, do we? They don't choose us, either. So it works out." (7) Should we pursue technologies that will allow parents to choose and even "design" the traits of their offspring? 
7. Do you, like Frank, have a hard time saying what makes you happy? 8 Is being happy "everything"? 9
8. Do you agree that people live longer and happier "the more stuff they can forget or ignore"? 11
9. What do you think of Frank's characterization of "white southerners"? What does he Realize and Understand? Do you think Pug is "really happy"? 17 18
10. Can someone who doesn't even try to be happy "give life its full due"?
11. Do you fear death? Or suffering? What is a "good death"? 24 Is there "plenty to be said for a robust state of denial"? 26
12. In what way do you think the "philosophically-inclined" regard the dead as not having
    "ceased to be"? 27
13. What sort of discourse do/did you have with your dad? 29
14. Do you think of life as a succession of "barriers" or "reluctances"? 31
15. Do you agree with Frank about understanding, making sense, and meaning? Are you also trying to "make living steal a march on dying"? 37
16. What do you think of malls? 39 Good riddance.
17. [More soon... meanwhile, go ahead and post any comments or questions you have about the first chapter (thru p.46) of Be Mine.]
18. 
    

The Mattering Map

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, The Mattering Instinct: how our deepest longing drives us and divides us

A Tennessee Dean Had ‘Zero Sympathy’ for Charlie Kirk. She Was Fired.

"If I'm wrong, and this speech is not protected, then I have never understood what the Constitution means and I have never understood what it protects," Ms. Sosh-Lightsy said. "Either I haven't understood it or we are on the edge of completely changing what it means."

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/us/politics/middle-tennessee-state-university-dean-fired-charlie-kirk.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

In Conversation with Richard Ford

https://youtu.be/Qzg4zb9ZZK4?si=gG-VXlfzgOVU7uWa

A glimpse behind the novelist's curtain... how the sausage gets made, how he relates to his fictional creations, etc.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Ford talks to John Hooks about his latest release, Be Mine – his fifth and final work of fiction that chronicles the life of his “everyman” character Frank Bascombe.

==

Ford @dawn... Ford@dawn2

Syllabus Spring 2026

MALA (Master of Liberal Arts) 6050-Philosophy in Recent American Fiction

(For more info: phil.oliver@mtsu.edu... https://prafmtsu.blogspot.com/)

We'll all read three novels* together, and each of us will additionally read and report on either a fourth novel or on a specific author's life and works.**

"Philosophy" = searching for wisdom, clarity, enlightenment, meaning, perspective, purpose, reality, truth, understanding, ... especially with regard to the human impact on nature, the environment, other species, & other humans.

"Recent" = 21st century

*The three novels:

• Richard Ford, Be Mine
• Richard Powers, Playground (see below #)
• Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God

**Possible fourth choices, for individual reports:

• The Sellout by Paul Beatty (2015) - A satirical look at race and identity that won the Man Booker Prize.
• The Candy House by Jennifer Egan (2022) - Explores themes of memory, connection, and digital surveillance.
• Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner (2024) - Considers whether the path to emancipation from what ails modern life is not revolt, but a return to the ancient past.
• Any of the earlier Frank Bascombe novels by Richard Ford...
• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (2016) - Explores the lasting impacts of slavery and the search for identity across generations.
• Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver (2012) - Explores climate change, ecological disruption, and human responsibility.
• Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (2024) - a new take on Dickens' Copperfield.
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006) - A harrowing journey through a post-apocalyptic landscape, meditating on survival, love, and morality.
• A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet (2020) - Set in a near-apocalyptic world, it examines generational responsibility and environmental collapse.
• Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng (2022) - Dystopian fiction about cultural repression and familial bonds.
• The Overstory by Richard Powers (2018) - A Pulitzer Prize-winning novel weaving interrelated stories about trees, nature, and activism.
• Bewilderment by Richard Powers (2021) - This novel delves deeply into themes of ecological awareness and the human condition through the story of a father and his neurodivergent son.
• Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid (2019) - Investigates issues of race, privilege, and morality in contemporary America.
• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (2022) - This narrative explores human creativity and relationships within the context of gaming and artificial intelligence.
• Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (2004) - A profound exploration of faith, mortality, and legacy in small-town America.
• Plato at the Googleplex by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein...
• The Maytrees by Annie Dillard (2007 meditates on time, love, and mortality in a manner reminiscent of late James or even Santayana.
• A Children’s Bible (2020) and Dinosaurs (2022) by Lydia Millet, perhaps our sharpest living ecological moralist. She writes with a mix of irony and tenderness about apocalypse, indifference, and human responsibility to the more-than-human world.
• The Woman Upstairs (2013), The Emperor’s Children (2006) by Claire Messud.
• Messud’s work probes questions of authenticity, ambition, and moral compromise—what Sartre called mauvaise foi in a modern American key.
• The Flamethrowers (2013), The Mars Room (2018) by Rachel Kushner
• Both novels interrogate freedom, rebellion, and moral responsibility within systems of art, politics, and incarceration.
• Fates and Furies (2015), Matrix (2021) by Lauren Groff
• Matrix, in particular, is a striking meditation on creative power, spirituality, and women’s community—an existential study of agency within constraint. Medieval monastic life reimagined as a feminist parable of creation, solitude, and visionary leadership. Philosophical focus: Meliorism, the work of care, and the imagination of better worlds within the constraints of necessity — what it means to “find delight in dark times.”
• The History of Love (2005), Forest Dark (2017) by Nicole Krauss
• Krauss brings a metaphysical sensibility to questions of love, art, and transcendence—often through a quasi-Kabbalistic lens.
• Oryx and Crake (2003) and The Year of the Flood (2009) by Margaret Atwood
• The Auburn Conference by Tom Piazza
• Culpability by Bruce Holsinger

**Possible authors, for individual reports:

• Michael Chabon
• Jennifer Egan
• Richard Ford
• Jonathan Franzen
• Barbara Kingsolver
• Rachel Kushner
• Ann Patchett
• Richard Powers
• Marilyn Robinson
• Philip Roth
• Tom Piazza

Your suggestions...

For midterm report presentations, focus on the day's assigned material. For the final report presentation and accompanying blog post, focus on the additional text you've selected. Each report is worth up to 25 points. Exams will be objective-format questions covering the required texts, each worth up to 25 points. Gain extra credit via participation (earned via comments and questions posted online and posed in class), which we'll track on the scorecard (to be explained in class)...

JAN

20 Introductions (Who are you? Why are you here? What's your definition of philosophy? What are the best and the most recent novels you've read? What did you like/dislike about them? Did you find in them anything "philosophical," by your definition? Post your responses in the comments' space below.)

27 Richard Ford, Be Mine ch1 (thru p.46). Select/assign midterm report presentation topic & date... and think about your final report presentation topic on a fourth novel or on a particular author. And take a look at the Richard Ford interview above, if you get a chance.

FEB

3 Richard Ford, Be Mine -p.87. Midterm report presentation: ___

10 Richard Ford, Be Mine -172. Presentation: ___

17 Richard Ford, Be Mine -266. Presentation: ___

24 Richard Ford, Be Mine -342. Presentation(s): ___

MAR

3 Exam. Select final report presentation topic & date. Presentation(s): ___

SPG BK

17 Richard Powers, Playground -p.95. Final report presentation: ___

24 Richard Powers, Playground -p.193. Presentation: ___

31 Richard Powers, Playground -p.292. Presentation: ___

APR

7 Richard Powers, Playground -p.381. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God -tba. Presentation: ___Presentation: ___

14 Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God -tba. Presentation: ___

21 Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God -tba. Presentation(s): ___

28 Last class. Exam 2. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God -tba. Presentation(s): ___

MAY

2 Final report blog post (final draft) due. Post earlier for feedback

IMPORTANT DATES Fall 2026

• Jan 20 - Classes begin

• Jan 27 - Select/assign midterm report presentation topic & date. 

• Feb 3 -  Mid-term report presentations begin.

• Mar 3 – Exam 1. Select final report presentation topic & date.

• Mar 9-14 – Spring Break – No Classes

• Mar 17 – Final report presentations begin

• Apr 28 – Our Last Day of Class. Exam 2

• May 2  - Final report blog post (final draft) due. Post earlier for feedback

• May 7  – Last Day of Term

• May 9  – Commencement (Days and Times TBD), Official Fall Graduation Date

• May 10  – Deadline for Submission of Final Grades, 11:59 p.m.

Connect

A good point to note, on the Spring semester's Opening Day tomorrow:

"But to me, it's becoming clear that writing and reading [and teaching and learning] is a way of simply underscoring that human connection is important, that you can know my mind and I can know yours, which is a vastly consoling idea, and we need it."

George Saunders Is No Saint (Despite What You May Have Heard),
NYT Magazine 1/18/2026

Literary therapy

As a scientist, I can't emphasize this enough: Reading literature is one of the most underrated tools for mental health.

https://www.threads.com/@scientist.slesha/post/DTqGvijlD7_?xmt=AQF0uNZqRArrWBEzF1iXBzFYVmQvh_QycopvdJs0yb6brI2-qswCTvVkVl1HV8pJa07pv08&slof=1

On the Transitory Nature of Happiness and Why It Doesn't Matter

https://open.substack.com/pub/rebeccanewbergergoldstein/p/on-the-transitory-nature-of-happiness?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=post%20viewer

Kaag on Goldstein’s “Mattering”

Philosophers are generally expected to display wisdom and calm in the face of existential questions. I am just not one of those philosophers. I spent 30 years racing away from these thoughts by running and swimming obsessively, pretending that I had no physical limits. Certain evasions are bound to fail: At 40, I suffered a cardiac arrest after an ill-advised treadmill workout. The sheer physicality of the event—the stopped heart, the failing body, the onerous recovery—threw into sharp relief a question that had always lurked beneath the surface: Does my life have a purpose? Or, put another way, how can I justify my existence? This dilemma gnaws at us in times of crisis and whispers to us in quiet moments of self-reflection. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein's new book, The Mattering Instinct, helped me understand this feeling, to see it not as a personal quirk or a philosophical indulgence but as a fundamental aspect of what it means to be human...

https://www.theatlantic.com/books/2026/01/the-mattering-instinct-rebecca-newberger-goldstein-book-review/685536/?link_source=ta_thread_link&taid=6962eb8aa6d4360001c406ee&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_medium=social&utm_source=threads

WJS Newsletter – William James Society

Spring 2026 Newsletter

President's Message from Dr. Phil Oliver

LISTEN (audio file on Google Docs)

'Tis the season of William James's birth, in 1842.

By an odd twist of coincidence, January 11 happens also to be my wife's birthday. So it's a date I cannot and dare not ever forget.

The late great biographer Robert Richardson, noting the legendary James "family tradition" according to which Emerson blessed infant William, cautioned against attaching either too much or too little import to that mythic connection. It does seem too right to be true, but also too good not to be...

https://wjsociety.org/news/

Unenlightened "theory"

"What’s confusing about the woke movement is that it’s born from traditional left-wing emotions: empathy for the marginalized, indignation at the plight of the oppressed, determination that historical wrongs should be righted. Those emotions, however, are derailed by a range of theoretical assumptions that ultimately undermine them. ‘Theory,’ in English, is such a nebulous and trendy concept that it’s even been used to launch a fashion line, but if the word today has no clear content, it does have some direction. What unites very different intellectual movements bound together by the word ‘theory’ is a rejection of the epistemological frameworks and political assumptions inherited from the Enlightenment. You need not spend years deciphering Judith Butler or Homi Bhabha to be influenced by theory. We rarely notice the assumptions now embedded in the culture, for they’re usually expressed as self-evident truths. Because they are offered as simple descriptions of reality rather than ideas we might question, it’s hard to challenge them directly. Those who have learned in college to distrust every claim to truth will hesitate to acknowledge falsehood."

"Left Is Not Woke" by Susan Neiman: https://a.co/6Q2Ymat

Beyond happiness

The philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein's latest book looks beyond happiness as the goal of a well-lived life.

https://www.theatlantic.com/books/2026/01/the-mattering-instinct-rebecca-newberger-goldstein-book-review/685536/?gift

Afraid of the light

Texas A&M has ordered a professor to remove the teachings of Plato from his course as part of an institutional policy banning race and gender "ideology."

Reached for comment, Plato said: "We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."

https://www.sacurrent.com/news/texas-news/texas-am-bans-radical-woke-teachings-of-greek-philosopher-plato/

Time travel

"I feel so sorry for anyone who misses the experience of history, the horizons of history. We think little of those who, given the chance to travel, go nowhere. We deprecate provincialism. But it is possible to be as provincial in time as it is in space. Because you were born into this particular era doesn’t mean it has to be the limit of your experience. Move about in time, go places. Why restrict your circle of acquaintances to only those who occupy the same stage we call the present?"

"Brave Companions" by David McCullough: https://a.co/2aRCw9Q

Texas A&M, Under New Curriculum Limits, Warns Professor Not to Teach Plato

Definitely planning, now, to discuss Plato's Symposium in my classes around Valentine's Day. What a moment we're living through! And what a platonic irony, as they're literally killing poets too.

… On Wednesday, as word of disputes like Dr. Peterson's spread, critics of the Texas A&M policies said free-speech clashes became inevitable after the board's moves. The College Station campus's chapter of the American Association of University Professors said the move against Dr. Peterson "raises serious legal concerns."

The group said its misgivings went beyond the Constitution.

"Silencing 2,500-year-old ideas from one of the world's most influential thinkers betrays the mission of higher education and denies students the opportunity to engage critically with the foundations of Western thought," the group said. "A research university that censors Plato abandons its obligation to truth, inquiry, and the public trust — and should not be regarded as a serious institution of higher learning."

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/07/us/tamu-plato-race-gender.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

The Novels Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2026

Tayari Jones, Ann Patchett, George Saunders and Veronica Roth return with new novels; Jennette McCurdy makes her fiction debut; and more.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/07/books/review/new-fiction-books-2026.html?smid=em-share

Lit Crits worth your time

"Was chatting with buddy about Philosophy the other day—which I'm mostly familiar with in relation to Literary Criticism. He said he'd never read any Lit Crit and I told him there are only a dozen or so literary critics worth your time and he'd already read them.

Erich Auerbach is one of these."

https://substack.com/@bloodmeridian/note/c-195642070?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

A Case for Beauty in a Fleeting World

We turn to art to make sense of a life that is heartbreakingly fragile.

"...Because the rest, as Shakespeare knew, is silence."

Margaret Renkl

Seek wisdom

"Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul."

— Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus

Pulitzer women

They Want to Influence You to Do … Nothing

Some GenZ influencers are so weird. For goodness sake, do something: go for a walk, read a book; don't just sit there making empty "content"…

…James Danckert, who runs a "boredom lab" at the University of Waterloo in Canada, where he studies the psychological and neurological roots of boredom, cautioned new practitioners not to indulge a "gross misunderstanding of boredom," in which this mental state is assumed to be a de facto good.

"Boredom is signaling for you a lack of meaning, a lack of purpose in your life," he said in an interview, calling the TikTok challenge in particular "a misguided approach." The goal, he explained, is not to wallow in feelings of disinterest and malaise but to find some way to alleviate them.

There are better ways for people to cope, Dr. Danckert said, other than locking themselves in a cage of existential ennui — by going outside or finding a new hobby, for instance. Reading also works. "You don't have to do nothing."

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/01/style/boredom-online-trend-influencers-tiktok.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share