Jacob Barto is an expert in German literature and language, currently adjunct assistant professor of German at Bellevue College. In this Halloween-themed conversation, Dave and Jacob claw their way through a splattering of spooky classics from European literary history, encountering as they go child-seducing ghosts, philosophical demon-devil hybrids, and even a few subversively bloodthirsty lesbian vampires. They end by sinking their teeth into the question: what accounts for the power that horror as a genre has within society today?

Works discussed, among others: Goethe, “Erlkönig” (Poem, 1782); Goethe, “Faust” (Verse Tragedy, 1808/1832), Schubert, “Erlkönig” (Lied, 1815). Dante, “Inferno” (Poem, 1321), Sheridan Le Fanu, “Carmilla” (Novella, 1872), Benjamin, “The Origin of German Tragic Drama” (Book, 1925), Murnau, “Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens” (Film, 1922), Herzog, “Nosferatu the Vampyre” (Film, 1979).

Jacob’s Recommendations:

Mikhail Bulgakov, “The Master and Margarita” (Novel, 1928–1940)

Ludwig van Beethoven, “The Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92” (Symphony, 1811–1812)

Akiyuki Shinbo, “Puella Magi Madoka Magica” (Anime, 2011)

How can philosophy be defined? Who can philosophize, and what roles do age, language, or geography play in one’s aptitude for philosophizing? When and where in planetary history did philosophy “begin” and will it someday “end”? To what extent should knowledge of past philosophy and philosophers determine how philosophy is done today?

In this episode, Dave approaches philosophy “in a broad way” and “in a general sort of sense,” drawing upon Aristotle’s identification of philosophy with wonder and defending his own idiosyncratic definition: philosophy as the art of asking questions.

Caleb Ward is postdoc in philosophy at University of Hamburg and leader of the DFG project “Moral Opposition and Political Agency under Oppression.” Author of multiple articles and book chapters, their monograph–on the philosophy of Audre Lorde–will appear in 2026.

Caleb’s webpage.

Sierra Deutsch is an interdisciplinary political ecologist in the department of geography at the University of Zurich. Dave and Sierra chat about Euro-American academic identity, Sierra’s grueling recent trip to the top of Africa’s highest mountain (where she nearly developed altitude sickness), the global economic-political-environmental polycrisis, the deep tradition of Marxist environmental theory, the importance of foregrounding Indigenous voices in our efforts to combat entangled structures of colonialism and capitalist environmental exploitation, and more.

Sierra’s Recommendations:

Zero 7, “In the Waiting Line” (Song)

Nancy Fraser, “Cannibal Capitalism” (Book)

Indigenous environmental theorists–among others:

Winona LaDuke, Kyle Powys Whyte, Taiaiake Alfred

Rob Mottram is a scholar of modern European literature and culture, and senior lecturer in German studies at Whitman College.

Rob and Dave chat about sandwiches, nostalgia, encountering computers as kids in the 1980s and early 1990s, AI (including AI term papers and AI podcasts), the overwhelming power of aesthetic experience, Goethe’s Faust Pt. II, and Rob’s transformative melding into Caspar David Friedrich’s “Mountain Landscape with Rainbow.”

Rob’s Recommendations:

Don’t Go to Montana and Don’t Enter Academia!

The Flaming Lips, “At War with the Mystics” and “Embryonic” (Albums):

George Steiner, “Real Presences” (Book)

Tatjana Schönwälder-Kuntze is a philosopher based in Munich and the author of, among other books, Freiheit als Norm? Kritische Theoriebildung und der Effekt Kantischer Moralphilosophie, Philosophische Methoden, and Judith Butlers Philosophie des Politischen: Kritische Lektüren.

This is the first (but probably not the last?) German-language episode of the podcast. Recorded with a live audience at the Städtisches Lapidarium Stuttgart: https://www.lapidarium-stuttgart.de/

Tatjana’s Recommendations:

Ilija Trojanow, “Der Weltensammler” (Novel)

Prince, “Sign o’ the Times” (Album)

Lasse Hallström, “Gottes Werk & Teufels Beitrag” (Film)

While producing the podcast and creating bizarre philosophy-themed YouTube videos over the past months, Dave has also been working on three books in progress–“Animality and Finitude,” “On the Kanthropocene,” and “A Bipolar Manifesto.”

Parts of each book have been released on a rolling basis on the Deadbeat Philosophy homepage (deadbeatphilosophy.substack.com), and episodes 20, 21, and 22 of the podcast will feature readings of available sections of each.

In this episode, Dave reads the first three parts of “A Bipolar Manifesto”:

1. What This Book Plans to Do

2. The Bipolar Appeal of Kant

3. Bipolar is Like . . . Wintering in Antarctica

While producing the podcast and creating bizarre philosophy-themed YouTube videos over the past months, Dave has also been working on three books in progress–“Animality and Finitude,” “On the Kanthropocene,” and “A Bipolar Manifesto.”

Parts of each book have been released on a rolling basis on the Deadbeat Philosophy homepage (deadbeatphilosophy.substack.com), and episodes 20, 21, and 22 of the podcast will feature readings of available sections of each.

In this episode, Dave reads the first six parts of “On the Kanthropocene”:

1. Jack and the Beanstalk of Reason

2. With All Due Respect to Cephalopods

3. The Kanthropocene Is

4. The “Global Environmental Crisis”

5. The Kanthropocene and Us

6. Infanticidal Hominins in the Space of Reasons

Info about live podcast recording on 8.8.25

While producing the podcast and creating bizarre philosophy-themed YouTube videos over the past months, Dave has also been working on three books in progress–“Animality and Finitude,” “On the Kanthropocene,” and “A Bipolar Manifesto.”

Parts of each book have been released on a rolling basis on the Deadbeat Philosophy homepage (deadbeatphilosophy.substack.com), and episodes 20, 21, and 22 of the podcast will feature readings of available sections of each.

In this episode, Dave reads the first six parts of “Animality and Finitude”:

1. Life is a Journey. Death is Where that Journey Ends

2. On the Animality of Cookie Monster, Grover, Elmo, and Oscar the Grouch

3. On the Question of Ethical Eating

4. Against Sustainability: Six Theses

5. The Paradox of the Easter Bunny

6. A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Paradoxical Medicine Go Down

With this episode, the Deadbeat Philosophy Podcast will shift to an every other week format–at least until the end of summer and the conclusion of all inglorious summer-related travel.

Thanks for tuning in, and until soon.

Ivo Martin is a philosopher, educator, and musician based in Stuttgart.

Dave and Ivo chat about the relative places of philosophy in the education and social systems of Germany and the USA, the (non?)relationship between studying philosophy and acting ethically, teaching philosophy to young children, the expectation of “neutrality” in the teaching of philosophy and politics, the value of anti-democratic philosophy in democratic states, the philosophical possibilities of rap music, spontaneity in music and thinking, the human/animal relation, anthropocentrism and the anthropocene, ecological nihilism, and more.

In the second half, Ivo shares his recently recorded rap (under his rap alias “Nautilus”) “Was ist der Mensch?” (“What is the Human?”), which Dave and Ivo unpack and discuss.

Hear “Was ist der Mensch?” again

Ivo’s Recommendations:

“Triangle of Sadness” (Film)

Otfried Preußler, “Krabat” (Novel)

“It Takes Two” (Video Game)