Metallica and Philosophy: A Crash Course in Brain Surgery (The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series)

Hit the lights and jump in the fire, you're about to enter the School of Rock!

Today's lecture will be a crash course in brain surgery. This hard and fast lesson is taught by instructors who graduated from the old school―they actually paid $5.98 for The $5.98 EP. But back before these philosophy professors cut their hair, they were lieutenants in the Metal Militia.

• A provocative study of the 'thinking man's' metal band
• Maps out the connections between Aristotle, Nietzsche, Marx, Kierkegaard, and Metallica, to demonstrate the band's philosophical significance
• Uses themes in Metallica's work to illuminate topics such as freedom, truth, identity, existentialism, questions of life and death, metaphysics, epistemology, the mind-body problem, morality, justice, and what we owe one another
• Draws on Metallica's lyrical content, Lars Ulrich's relationship with Napster, as well as the documentary Some Kind of Monster
• Serves as a guide for thinking through the work of one of the greatest rock bands of all time
• Compiled by the editor of Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing and The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer

William Irwin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at King's College, Pennsylvania. He has edited Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing; The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer (with Mark T. Conard and Aeon J. Skoble); and Critical Thinking: A Student's Introduction (with Gregory Bassham, H. Nardone, and J. Wallace). He is also the author of Intentionalist Interpretation: A Philosophical Explanation and Defense and editor of The Death and Resurrection of the Author.