We’ve talked a lot on the show in the past about Roland Barthes’ influential literary essay “La mort de l’auteur” or “the Death of the Author” and what it means in practical terms for cultural studies and related fields. Recently however, friend of the show Andrew Darowski, texted Mav and casually asked if that concept…
Month: September 2025
e389. Boycotts and their Cultural Impact
So… America is in a weird place right now. Frankly, we could say that just about every week these days. But this last couple of weeks it’s been even more so than our (new) normal level of crazy. A couple of weeks ago, right-wing political commentator Charlie Kirk was murdered while performing his college campus…
e388. 2025 Summer Catch Up! Was that it?
Well, it’s been a summer… that’s certainly true. And if you live in America, you know there’s been a bunch of… let’s say “news” that happened this week. Obviously we have opinions on it. But honestly, you’re likely getting enough of that. So this week, Mav and Hannah decided to do a light show where…
e387. TV is Our Religion: The Theological Lens of Peak Television
There’s a lot of TV content out there. In fact, sometimes it feels like there’s maybe too much TV to watch. However, there’s a certain set of shows that it seems everyone agrees “these are the prestige shows”. The shows that the critics talk about. The shows that people say “that’s quality”. Of course, these…
e386. Unpacking Long-Running TV: From Sitcoms to Soap Operas
They don’t make TV like they used to. They quite literally just don’t!. There’s lots of business reasons for this and culture changes and just an over abundance of content vs what there used to be. But for better or worse, the day epic 20+ season runs of several hundred episodes are probably behind us,…