e348. The True Meaning of Gifting: Connection over Consumerism

It’s the holiday season and that means that it’s time to begin the tried and true and for some people massively neurotic holiday tradition: Present Shopping! In this episode, Mav and Hannah Rogers engage in a lively discussion about the anxiety and joy associated with buying gifts, the consumerist nature of the holidays. How do…

CFC: How Do You Holiday Shop?

From Mav: As we reach the Christmas (Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc) season and devolve into our annual socially mandated display of affection through conspicuous consumption, we started having this little conversation amongst the cohosts about gift giving. Not for each other… just in general. How do you shop? Are you trying to be as capitalist as…

e193. Cheesy Christmas Movies 3

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! If you’ve been listening to this show for a while then you know that the winter holidays mean that we celebrate a certain tradition on our show. Welcome to our annual cheesy Christmas movies special! Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, chances are you’ve seen the emergent genre that is…

CFC: Cards, Baking, Music, Shelf Elves & Other Holiday Traditions

From Katya: Sometimes I think being a scholar of culture boils down to constantly recognizing that, actually, it absolutely is that deep. Pretty much all the time. We were talking about seasonal cultural practices that we found interesting. Mav brought up sending Christmas cards as a tradition that made him feel like he was celebrating…

Call for Comments: It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year (For Cheesy Movies)

From Hannah: Thanksgiving is officially over, so we can finally, finally indulge in the sentimental, silly, and surprising seasonal specials that channels like Hallmark have made a holiday staple and streaming services like Netflix have, perhaps, perfected. Mav and I have made no secret of our love for these amazing works of art in past…

e139. The 22 Reviews of Christmas (Cheesey Christmas 2)

Christmas movies have been a seasonal spectacle almost as long as there have been movies. A couple years ago, we did an episode speaking to the recent trend of Lifetime, Hallmark and now even Netflix creating a a veritable factory of streaming Christmas content. Those films were aimed at viewers who simply love delightful feel…

e138. Holiday Tradition and Ritual in the Time of COVID

It’s the holiday season. In the United States we just celebrated Thanksgiving, and in the coming weeks that will be followed by Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Years, Pancha Ganapati, Yule, Festivus, Saturnalia, Slackernalia and probably 1000 other winter holidays that get celebrated somewhere around the world. These holidays are often commemorated by coming together with…

Call for Comments: Cheesy Christmas Movies: Part II

From Hannah: Two years ago, I somehow convinced everyone to let me do a show on cheesy Christmas movies. And by wanting to talk about “cheesy” holiday films, what I really meant was “let’s talk about all these really ‘bad’ (but also sometimes kind of really fun and good in their own way) romantic comedies…

Call for Comments: Do we really like holidays anyway?

From Mav: As I finished teaching one of my Friday only classes, one of my students wished me a “Have a Happy Thanksgiving… or whatever” on his way out the door. It struck me that he was not just trying to be nice; as he was finishing the statement he realized the relative futility of…

e88. Yes, Internet, There is a Santa Claus

Christmas time is nearly upon us and that means… well, actually it means a lot of things. Maybe to you Christmas is about family, or love, or religion, or presents. Maybe you don’t celebrate Christmas at all. But one thing is for sure this time of year… you can’t escape Santa Claus. He’s everywhere. Santa…