Sean Kirkland unpacks living on the edge of “was” and “not yet.”

What if time isn’t just something we move through—but something that shapes us, wounds us, and makes us who we are? In this episode of Hotel Bar Sessions, Leigh and Rick sit down with philosopher Sean D. Kirkland (DePaul University), author of Aristotle and Tragic Temporality, to talk about what Aristotle can teach us about the tragic structure of human life. Together, they explore how ancient philosophy—and especially tragedy—reveals the limits of control, the inevitability of error, and the complicated beauty of living in a time that’s never fully ours.

References and Additional Readings

Primary Texts Discussed:

• Aristotle, Poetics

• Aristotle, Physics

• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

Works by Sean D. Kirkland:

• Sean D. Kirkland, Aristotle and Tragic Temporality (2023)

• Sean D. Kirkland, Heidegger and the Destruction of Aristotle: On How to Read the Tradition (2023)

• Sean D. Kirkland, The Ontology of Socratic Questioning in Plato’s Early Dialogues (2012)

Other Works and Authors Mentioned:

• Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (1927)

• Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology (1967)

• Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy (1872)

• Claudia Baracchi, Of Myth, Life, and War in Plato’s Republic (2002)

Greek Tragedies Referenced:

• Sophocles, Antigone

• Aeschylus, The Oresteia

Relevant Hotel Bar Sessions Episodes:

• Hotel Bar Sessions, Season 6, Episode 2: What Is Time?

• Hotel Bar Sessions, Season 9, Episode 4: The Ethics of Refusal