About/People

PHILOSOPHY meets POPULAR CULTURE

A wall in Belfast, August 31, 2008

Photo: Cynthia M. Grund

(Photo: C. M. Grund)

The PHILOSOPHY meets POPULAR CULTURE Initiative

The PHILOSOPHY meets POPULAR CULTURE initiative has a history spanning at least 15 years here in Denmark (see the News column on the Docs & Pics-page) , a pulsating present (see the News column on the Home page for  this site) and an exciting future (again, see the News column on the entry page for  this site). Many people have been, are - and will be - involved in research and educational endeavors that explore 

  • how   thoughts  and  themes  from  the  history of philosophy  -  as well as  current  philosophical issues and concepts -  inform popular culture and are exemplifed and recontextualized within products of popular culture;
  • whether or  not  popular culture  itself raises issues of interest to philosophy, or, indeed, is itself a problem from the point of view of philosophy;
  • the   efficacy   of  products  of   popular  culture  as  a  means  for  teaching  philosophy  to  post-modern students, whose knowledge of various aspects of popular culture often is as encyclopedic as their classical liberal arts background is limited (some might say impoverished).

One goal of the PHILOSOPHY meets POPULAR CULTURE homepage (launched on October 7, 2008)  is to provide a forum for researchers, teachers and students who have a serious interest in the meeting of philosophy with popular culture. The framework language of the site is English, so that the exchange of ideas may include participants from outside Denmark and the Nordic area; one hallmark of much popular culture is its tendency to go global. Swatches of Danish are inevitable in the the texts of conference programss and the like, and it may be the case that Facebook/blog categories will emerge dealing with very local Danish manifestations of popular culture which - as yet - are inaccesible to those who do not speak Danish.

Staff

Cynthia M. Grund (b. 1956). Cynthia has taught, lectured and written about the meeting of philosophy with popular culture in Denmark since 1995, building upon work she began doing in the U.S. in 1989. Currently Assoc. Prof. of Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy, Education and the Study of Religions (IFPR), University of Southern Denmark (SDU), Odense, Cynthia earned her doctorate in philosophy (fil.dr/FT) at U. of Tampere, Finland in 1997; dissertation: Constitutive Counterfactuality: The Logic of Interpretation in Metaphor and Music. Cynthia is Ed.-in-Chief  of JMM:The Journal of Music and Meaning; Director, Network for Cross-Disciplinary Studies of Music and Meaning (NTSMB); Network Coordinator, NordPlus-supported Nordic Network for the Integration of Music Informatics, Performance and Aesthetics; and Director, IFPR research program The Aesthetics of Music and Sound – Cross-Disciplinary Interplay between The Humanities, Technology and Musical Practice, a joint effort involving SDU, Aalborg U. - Esbjerg and The Academy of Music and Music Communication, Esbjerg.

Kean Andrew Bruhn (b. 1973) BA, cand.mag.: Kean has a masters' degree in literature from the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) in Odense, where his research has dealt with gender, sexuality and popular culture. He has written papers entitled  "The Double Structure of E.M. Forster's Maurice" and another entitled “The Gay 50’s: An Examination of American Homo-literature in the 50’s. Kean's masters’ thesis was an examination of  the use of reference in TV-series. He has been on the organizational staff for the annual conference on Philosophy and Popular Culture in Odense since its inception in 2005. Kean is a collector of TV-series – from the good to the bad and the really ugly.

Carsten Fogh Nielsen (b. 1974). BA, MA, PhD. Post.doc at the Centre for Subjectivity Research, University of Copenhagen. Philosophical interests: moral philosophy (ancient and modern); the philosophy of Immanuel Kant; German Idealism; ethical formation; philosophy and popular culture; the philosophy of entertainment. Recent publications include papers on Batman and Philosophy and Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgement. Carsten is probably the first person to lecture on Buffy the Vampire Slayer at a Danish university, and fervently believes that Joss Whedon is the one true king of Geekdom.

Contributors

Many have contributed to the  PHILOSOPHY meets POPULAR CULTURE Initiative throughout the years. We invite all who have (or are about to) give a talk at one of the conferences dealing with philosophy and popular culture at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) in Odense held each November from 2005 and onwards, or who have given a talk the conference dealing with philosophy and popular culture at the Unversity of Aarhus in April 2008, to send us a short bio (max. 700 characters incl. spaces) and a photo. We also extend this invitation to anyone who has lectured on the topic and/or published within the field.

In alphabetical order:

Johannes Achatz (b. 1982). Magister Artium Stud.: Johannes is a student of philosophy, political science and applied ethics at the Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena (FSU). He's working as a student assistant for Prof. Dr. Peter Kunzmann at the Ethics Center, Jena. He presented the paper "Music, the Digital, and Ethics: A case study on uniqueness, values and responsibility in digital music"  at CMMR/NTSMB 2008 in Copenhagen, May 2008 and continues to do research in the field of value theory and digital media. Other interests are: metaethics, applied ethics (mainly computer and information ethics) responsibility, moral values, history of moral theory and political philosophy (with some focus on Thomas Hobbes).

Niels Kern Bertelsen (b. 1988) is a student of philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy and History of Ideas, University of Aarhus. He likes normative philosophy, heavy ontologies and Bob Dylan. Niels has recently been working on a project about Sartre's existentialism and Toy Story. Niels also blogs about music and movies (in Danish) at earcandy.dk and moviesbycovers.blogspot.com. Pop cultural favourites include American Highschool movies, Carl Barks and Humphrey Bogart. Niels holds the belief that meat is murder

Jon Rostgaard Boiesen (b. 1977) is writing his master’s thesis at Department of Philosophy and History of Ideas at Aarhus University. He works within the fields of Marxism, Psychoanalysis, Deconstruction and Gender Studies. He is especially interested in the work of Slavoj Žižek and Jacques Derrida. He has given the papers “Batman and the Rule of Law” (together with Carsten Fogh Nielsen), “Pornoens Køn” (“The Gender of Porn”) and “Efics – It’s Like Ethics, But It’s Not” at the Philosophy and Popular Culture Conferences at SDU in Odense.

Kean Andrew Bruhn (b. 1973) BA, cand.mag.: Kean has a masters' degree in literature from the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) in Odense, where his research has dealt with gender, sexuality and popular culture. He has written papers entitled  "The Double Structure of E.M. Forster's Maurice" and another entitled “The Gay 50’s: An Examination of American Homo-literature in the 50’s. Kean's masters’ thesis was an examination of  the use of reference in TV-series. He has been on the organizational staff for the annual conference on Philosophy and Popular Culture in Odense since its inception in 2005. Kean is a collector of TV-series – from the good to the bad and the really ugly.

Claudio Cifuentes-Aldunate (b. 1954). Originally from Valparaíso, Chile, Claudio is dr. phil from Université de Fribourg, Switzerland, thesis title: Conversación en la Catedral, Poética de un Fracaso  Odense University Press, 1983, and he is an Associater Professor of Spanish at SDU, Odense. Claudio's current research interests include: Literary analysis and semiotics, the staging of truth in literature/history, micro-narratives, current narratives of Chile and Argentina and post-modern narratives in general. He has participated in a project on aesthetics and semio-aesthetics, and in connection with this wrote "The Myth of the Body in the Body of Myth" from 1998. Claudio is currently a member of LEIA Laboratoire d’Etudes Italiennes, Ibériques et Ibero-américaines (Université de Caen).

Hjarne Fessel (b. 1970) holds a degree in musicology from Aarhus.University. Hjarne has worked as artistic director and general manager for the Århus Sinfonietta (2005-2008): www.sinfonietta.dk and chief editor of the journal Dansk Musik Tidsskrift: www.danskmusiktidsskrift.dk (2007-2008). As of 2009 Hjarne works as promotion manager at the Music Sales Group, Edition Wilhelm Hansen: www.ewh.dk.  Hjarne is particularly interested in the meeting of avantgarde music with popular culture and the challenges which this poses for the aesthetics of music. The music of Frank Zappa is one of Hjarne's specialities.

Daniel Frandsen (b. 1983). BA, MA Stud.: Daniel is a student of philosophy at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU). Main philosophical interests: Philosophy of music (mainly concerning Heavy Metal); modern epistemology; value theory (the relation between ethical and aesthetic value). He has given a talk on the aesthetics of Death Metal at the Philosophy and Popular Culture conference at the University of Aarhus in April 2008, and will presented his paper “Suicide, Booze and Loud Guitars” at the Heavy Fundamentalism: Music, Metal and Politics conference in Salzburg, November 2008.

Kirsten Frandsen (b. 1963), PhD, is Associate Professor at the Institute of Information and Media Studies, Aarhus U. Her research has focused on sports in the media, and during the last years she has in particular been interested in the relations between sport and television. Besides a general interest in television she has been interested in lifestyleprograms and published work on theoretical issues and methodology. Kirsten has published  Dansk Sportsjournalistik. Fra sport til publikum (1996), has been co-editor of and contributor to a number of books, e.g. TV 2 på Skærmen (2000), Forskning i mediepolitik - mediepolitisk forskning (2004) andTv-produktion – Nye Vilkår (2007),and she has contributed to Media in a Globalised Society (2003), Dansk Tv-historie 1951-2003 (2006) and journals, e.g. Nordicom Information, Norsk Medietidsskrift and MedieKultur.  Right now she is Director of the research project TV-Entertainment: Crossmediality and Knowledge (2006-2009), funded by the Danish Research Agency.

Søren R. Frimodt-Møller (b. 1979) is a PhD fellow at the Institute of Philosophy, Education and the Study of Religions, University of Southern Denmark (SDU). Søren is Managing Editor of JMM: The Journal of Music and Meaning and writes for heavymetal.dk. Søren’s main research area at the moment concerns the manner in which musicians in an ensemble interact, and especially how their actions both shape and are guided by their understanding of the composition. Among his other research interests are investigations of the nature of humor and the many modes of expression in visual media, especially when consciously coupled with specific audio, e.g. in music videos. More info on Søren at www.orkesterfilosofi.dk

Jon Auring Grimm (b. 1978): BA and MA from the department of Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy and History of Ideas, University of Aarhus. Philosophical interests: Becoming, Flux, Ethics, the Erotic, the Perverse, Art etc. I’ve done talks on Sade, Nietzsche, Robocop, Pasolini, Houellebecq, Camus, nihilism, Nelson Goodman, Spinoza etc. I’m also a member of Elleoregruppen who freed the micronation Elleore (www.elleore.net), and I sing in and compose for Kings of Dark Disco.

Cynthia M. Grund (b. 1956). Cynthia has taught, lectured and written about the meeting of philosophy with popular culture in Denmark since 1995, building upon work she began doing in the U.S. in 1989. Currently Assoc. Prof. of Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy, Education and the Study of Religions (IFPR), University of Southern Denmark (SDU), Odense, Cynthia earned her doctorate in philosophy (fil.dr/FT) at U. of Tampere, Finland in 1997; dissertation: Constitutive Counterfactuality: The Logic of Interpretation in Metaphor and Music. Cynthia is Ed.-in-Chief  of JMM: The Journal of Music and MeaningDirector, Network for Cross-Disciplinary Studies of Music and Meaning (NTSMB); Network Coordinator, NordPlus-supported Nordic Network for the Integration of Music Informatics, Performance and Aesthetics; and Director, IFPR research program The Aesthetics of Music and Sound – Cross- Disciplinary Interplay between The Humanities, Technology and Musical Practice, a joint effort involving SDU, Aalborg U. - Esbjerg and The Academy of Music and Music Communication, Esbjerg.

William Irwin (b. 1970) is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Honors Program at King's College, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. In addition to publishing in leading scholarly journals such as Philosophy and Literature and The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Irwin originated the philosophy and popular culture genre of books with Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing (1999) and then The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer (2001). He also edited The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real (2002), as well as a follow-up book, More Matrix and Philosophy: Revolutions and Reloaded Decoded (2005). In 2006, Irwin left Open Court to found and become the General Editor of The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series through Wiley-Blackwell. South Park and Philosophy: You Know, I Learned Something Today was the first book in that series (2006), and Metallica and Philosophy: A Crash Course in Brain Surgery (2007) followed shortly thereafter. In an interview with USA Today Irwin said "the books are about smart popular culture for smart fans.”

Jørgen Dines Johansen (b. 1943). Professor of general and comparative literature at University of Southern Denmark since 1976. Studies at Copenhagen University in philo­so­phy, psychology, and German literature 1962-1964. Studies in general and comparative literature 1964-70. Received the gold medal of Copenhagen University for a prize essay on Post­war Theories of the Novelle 1969 (published 1970) and the same year a Thanks to the Danes Scholarship. Gra­du­ated as Magister artium (Ph.D.) from Department of Lite­ra­ture, Copenhagen University 1970 with a dissertation on the pro­blem of literary interpretation.  In 1999 he received prix mouton d’or for an article in Semiotica ”A diagrammatic modeling of semiosis” In 2004 his book Literary Discourse. A Semiotic-Pragmatic Approach to Literature (University of Toronto Press 2002) received the Perkins-prize from The American Society for the Study of Narrative Literature. Special fields of interests: semiotics and hermeneutics.

Lars Konzack (b. 1969) has a MA in Information Science and a Ph. D. in Multimedia from University of Aarhus. He is a lecturer on topics such as ludology, edutainment, game criticism, philosophical game design, sub-creation and geek culture. He finds inspiration in researchers such as C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Umberto Eco, Gregory Bateson and Johan Huizinga. More info at www.konzack.dk

Line S. Kristoffersen (b 1980) has a BA in philosophy from SDU, Odense. Line's philosophical interests encompass popular culture and its relation to queer- and gender studies. Line has written a bachelor thesis on gender and sexuality in the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The L Word, and she has given a talk together with Kean Bruhn on sexualtiy in TV-series at the conference concerning philosophy and popular culture at the University of Aarhus in April 2008, and gave another presentation together with Kean Bruhn at the fourth annual conference on Philosophy and Popular Culture at SDU, Odense in November 2008.

Bjarke Liboriussen (b. 1975) holds an MA in film studies, and is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Southern Denmark. Research interest: the architecture of online worlds, including their landscapes, worldviews, cognitive maps, and collective building projects.

Søren Arani Mortensen (b. 1975). MA and BA; Philosophy, Social Science, Litterature (Syddansk University – Odense). and Musicology (Aalborg University). Main interests are political philosophy, aesthetics, logic and the philosophy of science in the tradition of Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, W.V. Orman Quine and Daniel Dennett. Søren is mainly interested in the analysis of aesthetics and popular culture from the perspective of social and natural science, trying to embed aesthetics and popular culture within a naturalist framework. Currently Søren is working on philosophy of art from the perspective of information theory and probability theory.  

Carsten Fogh Nielsen (b. 1974). BA, MA, PhD. Post.doc at the Centre for Subjectivity Research, University of Copenhagen. Philosophical interests: moral philosophy (ancient and modern); the philosophy of Immanuel Kant; German Idealism; philosophy and popular culture; the philosophy of entertainment. Recent publications include papers on Batman and Philosophy and Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgement. Carsten is probably the first person to lecture on Buffy the Vampire Slayer at a Danish university, and fervently believes that Joss Whedon is the one true king of Geekdom.

Jesper Pilegaard (b. 1978) holds a degree as a Multimedia Designer and a BA in Media Science. Jesper is currently studying for a masters' degree in Cultural Science at the University of Southern Denmark and is interested in the immersive and educational properties of user-generated virtual worlds.

     Jesper is a master builder in the virtual realms of Second Life and has been involved in projects with the American Cancer Society and a series of educational projects, including Percipitopia (with Grund).

Kasper Porsgaard (b. 1979). BA, MA in philosophy at Aarhus University. One year of studies at the Department of Anthropology, Aarhus University. Kasper presented the paper "Christian Poulsen and the Art of Cheating at Games" at the 3rd Annual Conference on Philosophy and Popular Culture at SDU-Odense, November 2, 2007. Philosophical interests include: sports, rules, cheating, subjectivity, the concepts of game and play. General areas of interest are: dialectics, structuralism, psychoanalysis. Managing Director, Center for Wild Analysis (centerforvildanalyse.smartlog.dk).

Rikke Schubart is an associate professor at the University of Southern Denmark where she teaches film studies. Her present research is on the American war cinema after 1991 and she is currently co-editing the anthology War Isn’t Hell, It’s Entertainment: War in Modern Culture and Visual Media (Spring 2009, McFarland). She is the author of Super Bitches and Action Babes: The Female Hero in Popular Cinema, 1970-2006 (2007, McFarland), co-editor of Femme Fatalities: Representations of Strong Women in the Media (2004, Nordicom) with Anne Gjelsvik, and has written several books in Danish about the horror film and the action cinema. She also writes fiction.

Mikkel Leffers Svendstrup (b.1977). BA, MA (Masters thesis: The Ontology of Film), Co-owner of Aion ApS, a Copenhagen-based IT company that mainly develops electronic voting systems in cooperation with Siemens A/S and consults on the organization of electoral processes.  Main philosophical interests: Everything film or media related, Deleuze, ethics and metaphysics. Mikkel is also editor of www.uncut.dk and associated with Danish DVD distributor and production company Another World Entertainment as technical advisor, content advisor and booklet author. Examples of Mikkel’s involvement in DVD productions: Blue Sunshine, Ivan’s Childhood, Andrei Rublev, Solaris, Mirror, Stalker and The Sacrifice. As part of the Philosophy Meets Popular Culture initiative, Mikkel has given talks on film editing, Gilles Deleuze, Andrei Tarkovsky and Italian genre cinema.

William Westney (b. 1947). William (Bill) has woven together pursuits as a professional concert performer and an academic, while exploring the philosophical aspects of performing in classical and popular musical styles. He was named 2009-10 Hans Christian Andersen Guest Professor at the University of Southern Denmark (Odense), and is combining this interdisciplinary opportunity with his regular post as Paul Whitfield Horn Distinguished Professor and the Eva Browning Artist-in-Residence at Texas Tech University (Lubbock). The New York-born pianist holds a doctorate from Yale University and was the top winner of the Geneva International Competition.  His non-traditional ideas about music pedagogy are known worldwide through the “Un-Master Class” workshop and the bestselling book The Perfect Wrong Note (2003).

Staff

info@philpopculture.dk

Cynthia M. Grund

(Editor-in-Chief)

cynthia@philpopculture.dk

Kean Andrew Bruhn

kean@philpopculture.dk

Carsten Fogh Nielsen

carsten@philpopculture.dk