About this podcast
Why Theory brings continental philosophy and psychoanalytic theory together to examine cultural phenomena.
Episodes
The newest 20 of 231 episodes
- "Civilized" Sexual Morality · 1 h 13 minIn this episode, Ryan and Todd return to their Freud series to explore an under-read 1908 essay, "'Civilized' Sexual Morality and Modern Nervous Illness." This essay captures a…
- Iñárritu's Digger · 1 h 11 minREUPLOAD BECAUSE HALF THE EPISODE WAS MISSING: In this early release episode, Ryan and Todd discuss Alejandro González Iñárritu's recent film Digger. Widely panned upon its…
- Future of an Illusion · 1 h 11 minOn this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss Freud's Future of an Illusion, a text that would become overshadowed by his subsequent publication, Civilization and Its Discontents. The…
- Neo Noir · 1 h 18 minOn this episode, Ryan and Todd return to their film genre series to discuss the neo noir. As opposed to the classic noir period, which is named retroactively by French film…
- Divine Violence · 1 h 10 minOn this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss the notion of divine violence. The conversation draws principally on an encounter staged between the term's evocation in Walter Benjamin's…
- Wretched of the Earth · 1 h 12 minOn this episode, Ryan and Todd complete their Frantz Fanon duology by talking about his final completed work, Wretched of the Earth. The episode focuses on Fanon's "stretching"…
- Black Skin, White Masks · 1 h 22 minOn this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss Frantz Fanon's decolonial classic, Black Skin, White Masks. The hosts work through the conversation surrounding his credentials as a…
- Adaptations · 1 h 25 minOn this episode, Ryan and Todd theorize the adaptation as a form of film. The episode takes its point of departure the continuing conversation over Nolan's Odyssey. Film…
- The Odyssey · 1 h 25 minOn this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss Christopher Nolan's recent film. The conversation begins with Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey that Nolan consulted and adapted to…
- Theorizing the World Cup · 1 h 27 minOn this episode, Ryan & Todd theorize the World Cup as a public event that enables the non-expert to see complex theoretical notions, such as Alain Badiou's conceptualization of…
- What Is Literature? (Literature and Existentialism) · 1 h 20 minOn this episode, Ryan and Todd complete their Sartre inflected trifecta of episodes by engaging his 1947 essay series What Is Literature? The hosts begin by talking about how…
- Michael Clayton · 1 h 14 minOn this episode, Ryan and Todd cover writer-director Tony Gilroy's 2007 political thriller masterpiece, Michael Clayton. The hosts weave in Sartre's notion of committing oneself…
- Existentialism Is A Humanism · 1 h 16 minOn this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss Jean-Paul Sartre's 1945 lecture titled "Existentialism is a Humanism." In it, Sartre answers criticism that existentialism has received…
- Impossible Professions · 1 h 20 minOn this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss Freud's idea of the "impossible professions." First articulated in 1925, Freud is drawn to the idea that psychoanalysis is like government…
- Avarice · 1 h 14 minFollowing up some of the discussion points introduced in the previous episode on Ambition, this episode takes a stab at the deadly sin of Avarice. Beginning first with a…
- Ambition · 1 h 11 minOn this episode, Ryan and Todd tackle the fading specter of ambition as a tragic or negative quality. Far from being a minor rhetorical or social phenomenon, the two trace the…
- Transcendental Analytic (Kant's Critique of Pure Reason) · 1 h 20 minOn this episode, Ryan and Todd return to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason to discuss the Transcendental Analytic section of the text. Topics include: form and content, Kantian…
- Rob Reiner: An Overview · 1 h 28 minOn this episode, Ryan and Todd take a short break from their Kant Odyssey to discuss one of the podcast's most admired filmmakers: Rob Reiner. Coincidentally being released on…
- Transcendental Deduction (Kant's Critique of Pure Reason) · 1 h 24 minOn this episode, Ryan and Todd cover the next major idea in Kant's first critique: the transcendental deduction. While explicating the trajectory of Kant's argument, the pair…
- Transcendental Aesthetic (Kant's Critique of Pure Reason) · 1 h 14 minOn this episode, Ryan and Todd return to Kant and discuss the Transcendental Aesthetic from his Critique of Pure Reason. The hosts work through a sketch of Kant's idea, why he's…
