The Pop Culture Philosopher

Die, or Get Better?

June 6, 2020 Chris SunamiIdentity

In these days of pandemic, American democracy lies sick, burning not with fever but with fire. Every illness must come to one end or the other. Will she die, or will she get better? The[…]

Find Me at Partially Examined Life

May 30, 2019December 13, 2019 Chris SunamiPhilosophy

Pop Culture Philosopher will be on hiatus this summer. However, I’m glad to announce that “Saints and Simulators,” my series on the intersection of religion and technology will be continuing at the Partially Examined Life[…]

“We All Try”: Philosophical Music

May 16, 2019May 16, 2019 Chris SunamiChristian Existential Humanism

Repost from 2015 Hip-hop singer Frank Ocean is well-known to march to the beat of a different drummer, and nowhere is that more apparent than in We All Try, a lovely and plaintive existential humanist[…]

"Called A Home" by Dr. Kyo Koike

Wokepedia – Seattle Camera Club

May 2, 2019 Chris SunamiArt

This week’s Wokepedia project was near and dear to my heart. The Seattle Camera Club was a groundbreaking, interracial, gender-inclusive group of mostly Japanese-American photographers pioneering photography as fine art around the start of the[…]

ConnectArt in Cuba

April 25, 2019April 20, 2019 Chris SunamiArt

Last week I was blessed to have an amazing opportunity I had never even dreamt of –to travel to Cuba. My wife was being featured as a part of a group of Columbus area artists[…]

Image: "Swamp Patrol" by Roger Blum

A Statistic of One

April 18, 2019March 30, 2019 Chris SunamiPoetry

This is a repost of a powerful poem by my late uncle John Gilmore, who was a US Marine in Vietnam, a substance-abuse counselor in civilian life, and a gifted poet in both realms. A[…]

Image by Janet McKenzie

Christian Humanism – Is it a Contradiction?

April 11, 2019March 30, 2019 Chris SunamiChristianity

This is the text of an address I delivered in 2007 to The Ohio State University “Students for Freethought” student organization on the topic “Christian Humanism: Is it a Contradiction?” Good evening. I am here[…]

Long Division

April 4, 2019March 30, 2019 Chris SunamiLiterature

I first encountered author Kiese Laymon when I read his essay “You are the Second Person,” an unapologetically bridge-burning reckoning of his encounter with a assimilationist editor who tried to deracinate his work. What stuck[…]

Image by Nishant Goswami

Pirates of the Caribbean II: Dead Man’s Chest

March 28, 2019March 29, 2019 Chris SunamiCompetition

The second Pirates movie was an entertaining romp, with some great action sequences, featuring the always-compelling Johnny Depp. However, the film also featured a disturbing racial subtext.   Most blatantly, the film trafficked in broad racial[…]