In 1967, literary critic and semiotician Roland Barthes wrote an essay called “La mort de l’auteur” that is in many ways foundational for the field of literary studies. It describes the way that literary interpretation works — both why and how. Since we do a lot of that on this show, figured it would be…
Author: Katya Gorecki
Episode 22: Monuments and Memories
A couple of weeks ago, a protest at the University of North Carolina resulted in the toppling of “Silent Sam” a statue that stands at the university to commemorate Civil War era Confederate soldiers. A week later, another protest at the site resulted in police using mass pepper spray on the student population. Confederate monuments…
Call For Comments: Monuments to Racism
[caption id="attachment_857" align="alignright" width="300"] Police stand guard after the confederate statue known as Silent Sam was toppled by protesters on campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)[/caption] From Mav: Once again, we’re in a situation where fortune calls upon us and I am presented…
Episode 18: She-Ra and the Male Gaze
If you happened to see a mid-tier 1980s cartoon superheroine get a costume update that was less objectifyingly sexy for a modern day reboot of the series in the last couple weeks and you were shocked to see a bunch of angry middle-aged men complaining about it… well then, “hello there! You must be new…
Call For Comments: She-Ra and the Male Gaze – To Sexy or Not TOO Sexy, That is the Question…
From Mav: Fun fact, this show has its origins in two places. One is geeky conversations that I have had with Wayne in the comic book shop he works in and we eventually said “we should make a show out of this.” We’ve told that story before. The other is in conversations that I had…
Call For Comments: Sex, Gender and Video Games
From Mav: Way back on our third show, we talked about violence in video games. It was a fascinating show. Neither Wayne or I are experts, so that was the first time we called in both Katya and Abby to run the discussion. It was great. I learned a lot. Chief among the things I learned…
Episode 8: Academia & Viral Social Justice
Earlier this month Duke University appeared in the news amid a minor controversy where a school administrator was offended by the rap music playing in a campus coffee shop and complained resulting in the employees (an African American woman and a Caucasian man) on duty getting fired. Later in the same month an African American…
Call for Comments: The Rhetoric of Digital Farming, Anti-Capitalism, and Talking Jellybeans
November 9, 2018
From Katya: Eric Barone and Chucklefish recently released the popular farm simulator, Stardew Valley, to iOS. The game draws heavily on Harvest Moon, allowing players to grow crops, care for animals, fish, befriend and even marry townsfolk. Having missed the farm sim. craze train (multiple times, in fact), and coming down with a nasty flu…