Neo Noir

September 27, 2026 · 1 hr 18 min

On 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 critics (1941-1958), neo noir films were aware of how they fit…
Divine Violence

September 13, 2026 · 1 hr 11 min

On 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 1921 essay, "Toward a Critique of Violence" and the term's…
Wretched of the Earth

August 30, 2026 · 1 hr 13 min

On 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" of both Marxism and psychoanalysis to ground his unique…
Black Skin, White Masks

August 17, 2026 · 1 hr 22 min

On 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 psychoanalyst, his engagement with Freud, Lacan, Octave Mannoni…
Adaptations

August 2, 2026 · 1 hr 26 min

On 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 adaptations, according to the hosts, must represent an intervention…
The Odyssey

July 19, 2026 · 1 hr 25 min

On 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 the screen. Much of the conversation is focused on teasing…
Theorizing the World Cup

July 6, 2026 · 1 hr 28 min

On 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 the event and Jean-Paul Sartre's idea of self-transcendence…
What Is Literature? (Literature and Existentialism)

June 21, 2026 · 1 hr 21 min

On 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 much Sartre's method has meant to them respectively before…