070: Ep66 – Disability and Popular Culture

In this 66^th episode of the Philosophy Bakes Bread radio show and podcast, Eric Thomas Weber and Anthony Cashio had the pleasure to talk with self-taught philosopher John Altmann (a.k.a. Adrian Alba), who has been engaging in independent philosophical scholarship since 2010. We talk with John about “Disability and Popular Culture.”

John is a regular contributor to the Popular Culture and Philosophy book series. He is a member of the European Network of Japanese Philosophy. He is also a field editor for the Public Philosophy Journal. John is an active public thinker also in his writings on Facebook and Twitter, on the latter of which he is known as @Iron_Intellect. John published a powerful piece in The New York Times, called “I Don’t Want to Be Inspiring,” which was about disability and the ways in which people will often refer to persons with disabilities as being “so inspiring!”

Eric and Anthony both had the chance to meet John at the 2018 gathering of the Public Philosophy Network in Boulder, Colorado this past February, where John gave a powerful paper about the profession of philosophy, called “The Disabled Can Speak: Socratic Midwifery as a Means of Resisting Epistemic Violence.” In addition to that well received paper, John has also written for volumes such as Dracula and Philosophy, The European Journal of Japanese Philosophy, Deadpool and Philosophy, Hippo Reads, and the Blog of the American Philosophical Association, where he wrote about Charlottesville.

Listen for our “You Tell Me!” questions and for some jokes in one of our concluding segments, called “Philosophunnies.” Reach out to us on Facebook @PhilosophyBakesBread and on Twitter @PhilosophyBB; email us at philosophybakesbread@gmail.com; or call and record a voicemail that we play on the show, at 859.257.1849. Philosophy Bakes Bread is a production of the Society of Philosophers in America (SOPHIA). Check us out online at PhilosophyBakesBread.com and check out SOPHIA at PhilosophersInAmerica.com.

(1 hr 8 mins)

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Notes

1. The Public Philosophy Network.
2. The Public Philosophy Journal.
3. Joel Michael Reynolds.
4. Shelley Lynn Tremain.
5. Susan Wendell, “The Social Construction of Disability,” in The Rejected Body (New York: Routledge, 1996).
6. Marta Russell and Ravi Malhotra, “Capitalism and Disability,” Social Register 38 (2002): 211-228.
7. Roddy Slorach.
8. The Americans with Disabilities Act, information at ADA.gov.
9. George Yancy.
10. Carol Hay, “Girlfriend, Mother, Professor?” The New York Times, January 25, 2016.
11. Nicolas Michaud and Janelle Pötzsch, eds. Dracula and Philosophy (Chicago: Open Court Press, 2015).
12. Civil American, SOPHIA’s peer-reviewed online journal for general audiences.
13. Colin McGinn, The Making of a Philosopher: My Journey through Twentieth Century Philosophy (New York: Harper Perennial, 2003).
14. Anthony Cashio, “Liberating the Liberal Arts: Encouraging Philosophical Engagement Outside of the Classroom,” on our 2018 SOPHIA panel at the Public Philosophy Network conference in Boulder, CO.
15. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (New York: Dover Publications, 1998).
16. Nicolas Michaud and Jacob Thomas May, eds., Deadpool and Philosophy (Chicago: Open Court Press, 2017).
17. Richard Greene and Rachel Robison-Greene, eds., Mr. Robot and Philosophy: Beyond Good and Evil Corp (Chicago: Open Court Press, 2017).
18. CarlSagan.com.
19. We referenced Episode 65 of Philosophy Bakes Bread, on “Westworld and Philosophy.”
20. Ariel Henley, “As A Woman With A Facial Disfigurement, This ‘Wonder Woman’ Villain Pisses Me Off,” Bustle.com, July 7, 2017. See also Henley’s “My face is disfigured. When I met the right guy, he didn’t even bring it up,” The Washington Post, September 28, 2016.
21. Tommy Curry, mentioned in part in reference to the episodes he recorded on Philosophy Bakes Bread, including Episode 9 on “Studying Black Men,” and Episode 32 on “The Public Philosopher and the Gadfly.”
22. Chris Lebron.
23. Jamie Lombardi.
24. Whitney Mutch.
25. Gail Pohlhaus.
26. Julie Piering, “Diogenes of Sinope,” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

You Tell Me!

For our future “You Tell Me!” segments, John posed the following question in this episode:

“What does it mean to get representation (of groups/persons) right in a film or television show?”

Let us know what you think! Via Twitter, Facebook, Email, or by commenting here below.