Coffee with a Canine: Kelly Dean Jolley & Ahab and Sadie

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Kelly Dean Jolley is a Professor of Philosophy at Auburn University and author of The Concept 'Horse' Paradox and Wittgensteinian Conceptual Investigations: A Prolegomenon to Philosophical Investigations and the forthcoming Wittgenstein: Key Concepts as well as numerous scholarly articles and book chapters.

He was featured in a September 2008 article in the New York Times Magazine.

Jolley is also an occasional poet. Read his poem "Alabama Pits."

How did his pit bulls get their names?

I have typically used a formula to name my male pits: find the name of an ancient tyrant that is also the name of a memorable character in literature, and give it to your dog: hence, ‘Ahab’ (and before him, ‘Nero’). My wife named Sadie. I wanted to give Sadie the name, ‘Jezebel’ (the tyrant Ahab’s wife). It tickled my black-humor bone that dogs were on the scene at each of Ahab and Jezebel’s gruesome deaths. But my wife thought this was just too much (she so often saves me from myself), and so she chose ‘Sadie’.

Read--Coffee with a canine: Kelly Dean Jolley & Ahab and Sadie.

--Marshal Zeringue