Culturally Determined

The controversial finale of Game of Thrones ... Would Dany have been a good queen? ... Why many female fans felt so betrayed ... Was the story just a big red herring? ... Aryeh: The second part of the episode felt like fan fiction ... The fates of Jon, Arya, and Sansa ... Michael explains how the coffee cup blooper happened ... The end of a TV era ... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for mor...

How Leah realized that she should not "be herself" ... The mental health benefits of getting a dog ... Leah: We must bring back Kierkegaardian irony ... Leah on the scourge of "urgent earnestness" ... Is it ethical to not read the news? ... Leah's reflections on being "a year Twitter sober" ... Lessons from the great "horseface" controversy of 2018 ... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for mo...

Reviewing Avengers: Endgame ... Spoilers! The movie's first wild twist ... Is time travel a cop out? ... The first big character death ... Milton: Comic book fans have matured ... Assessing the giant climactic fight scene ... The aftermath: selfishness and selflessness ... Appraising the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole ... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Justin's recent NYT op-ed, "The End of Satire" ... Neo-Nazi memes and satire from the bottom ... How Justin's views about free speech have changed ... The line between satire and fake news ... Our surreal reality, where Trump's "gorilla channel" seems plausible ... In the age of Trump, what's the use of satire? ... Justin's new book, Irrationality: A History of the Dark Side of Reason ... Hosted o...

Phoebe presents a short explainer on the Dreyfus Affair ... Why we still talk about Dreyfus today ... The Covington Affair, the Smollett Affair, and other contemporary Affairs ... How social media makes causes célèbres more likely ... Why Phoebe identifies strongly with George Costanza ... Does Seinfeld have a successor? ... Aryeh: There's no cancellation but self-cancellation ... Embracing martyr...

Clues in the new Game of Thrones title sequence ... Reviewing the season premiere ... What's the point of Euron? ... Does Westeros have a "true" religion? ... Possible endings: Happy, sad, and time travel-y ... Gratuitous nudity returns ... Is this the last communal TV show? ... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

B. D.'s essay on mononucleosis and gnosticism ... What the ancient gnostics believed about body and spirit ... Fingernail clippings and other problems with bodily resurrection ... Pros and cons of living in a body ... Did George H.W. Bush get to walk out of his wheelchair at the gates of Heaven? ... B. D. explains the Children's Crusade of 1212 ... The Children's Crusade's contemporary resonances...

College admissions fraud and children as products ... Adventures with Ivy League jocks ... Daniel: "Meritocracy is essentially bullshit" ... Was Black Panther neoliberal? ... Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman, and anti-imperialism ... Why Bernie has the advantage over Biden ... The consequences of America's senescent leadership class ... Do BernieBros actually exist? ... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/...

Marshall's Oscar-nominated documentary short, A Night at the Garden ... The German American Bund and its leader, Fritz Kuhn ... A Nazi rally and a Trump rally ... The Jewish protester who ran on stage ... The return of "America First" ... Marshall's 2005 documentary on Cory Booker's mayoral run, Street Fight ... Marshall: Booker is not a phony ... Will the stain of New Jersey corruption stick to B...

Dan's recent essay, "Adolescent Politics" ... Dan: Social media has turned the world into a high school cafeteria ... Shouldn't stand-up comics be bad people? ... Trump, Exhibit A of the adolescent id ... The (largely pointless) college activism of the 1980s ... Why Aryeh kept his mouth shut about Jussie Smollett ... Reasons for optimism and pessimism ... How Joan Didion helped inspire Dan's essay...

Juliet's new novel, Talent ... How Juliet created her creatively blocked main character ... Different ways that authors show their hands ... Against lifehacking ... The eternal tension between artists and scholars ... On having written a novel that will never be optioned by Hollywood ... The two type of academics in fiction ... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

James's new book, Wit's End ... In defense of puns ... The science behind why jokes are pleasurable ... James: Wit can make you laugh, but it always makes you think ... The benign violation theory of humor ... Great wits of yesterday and today ... Wit as a weapon of the powerless ... Juggling as a physical form of wit ... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Riley's recent article in Jacobin, "Politics Is Not Harry Potter" ... Nostalgia and neoliberalism ... Is the ideology of the Potter books neoliberal or aristocratic? ... The fantasy of defeating the "final evil" ... Why does J.K. Rowling hate Jeremy Corbyn? ... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brand consultant Bill on Gillette's controversial new ad on masculinity ... Bill explains what a brand consultant does ... Why Gillette took a big risk ... Was a conservative backlash part of Gillette's plan? ... Was the ad a success? ... Pepsi's disastrous political ad and Nike's successful political ad ... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alice's new book, Why We Dream ... All the wrong ways we used to think about dreams ... The unusual discovery of REM sleep ... When scientists thought dreams were a paranormal gateway ... Alice describes participating in a "dream group" ... What do events in dreams really mean? ... Why do we have nightmares? ... How to get started with lucid dreaming ... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for...

Travis's new book, Superhero Ethics ... The Incredible Hulk and the dangers of individualism ... Why Wolverine embodies honor and integrity ... Batman vs. Spider-Man, dueling reactions to our tragic universe ... Family tragedies in the lives of Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker ... Why adults should take comic books seriously ... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Meghan’s essay on the Intellectual Dark Web, “Nuance: A Love Story” How Bloggingheads led Meghan to the IDW The Rubin Report, the IDW’s salon room Why Meghan described IDWers as her “new friends” Adam Carolla, Howard Stern, and the spirit of transgression Why Jordan Peterson arouses such passions Is the IDW just a way to avoid confronting Trump? Has the word “fuck” lost its bite? Recorded December...

Rebecca's path from the Ivy League to an animal shelter ... The science of animal training ... The many reasons why you shouldn't try to be your dog's "alpha" ... What we know about animal personality ... What goes on inside an animal shelter? ... Is there such a thing as a "bad dog"? ... What's actually happening when your pet looks ashamed ... Aryeh and Rebecca debate whether their dog loves the...

How Brandy came to write an advice column called "Ask a F*ck-Up" ... Young people's problems: depression, alienation, loneliness ... Brandy's central theme: the responsibilities we bear to each other ... Can "bad men" change? ... The different questions men and women ask ... Brandy: A "sex strike" would never work ... In defense of being in your own Twitter bubble ... Why are there so many depress...

Viewing the Trump-Kanye meeting through the lens of mental illness ... The shared traits that make Trump and Kanye irresistible to the media ... How online news and social media created the "attention economy" ... Did reality TV remake reality? ... Jake and Logan Paul: brothers, YouTube superstars, and possible sociopaths ... How social media helps people with mental illness ... Hosted on Acast. S...

What is it about social media that's so depressing? ... Twitter, the unpopular website that elites love ... Is what happens on social media real or fake? ... Is @laurenoyler the same as Lauren Oyler? ... How everything in life became "toxic" ... Do all online communities eventually become toxic? ... The moral challenge of social media ... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information...

The hot new trend of being a homebody ... Social, economic, and technological reasons young people are staying in ... The surprisingly controversial topic of skincare ... Millennials using apps to order food delivered by Millennials ... Netflix and chill and take Instagram selfies wearing sheet masks ... Is being a homebody the modern way to go to Walden Pond? ... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/pr...

The new sex abuse crisis enveloping the Catholic Church ... An explosive letter claims Pope Francis helped a known abuser ... The allegations against the powerful Archbishop McCarrick ... What does #MeToo reveal about the Church? ... Assessing Archbishop Viganò's accusations against Francis ... Can Francis implement real reforms? ... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lauren's new book on her experiment with dressing modestly, The Beauty Suit ... Lauren's unusual path to the seminary ... Alternative readings of Quranic verses on female modesty ... Christianity, conspicuous consumption, and the Amish ... Jewish women who cover their hair with wigs that look just like their hair ... Makeup trends that only look good on social media ... Why cultural appropriation...

Phil's essay, "What Is It Like to Be a Man?" ... Modern male stereotypes: Homer Simpson vs. Harvey Weinstein ... Proud Boys, Jordan Peterson, and the crisis of masculinity ... The trans challenge to gender norms ... Phil explains why his Christian faith doesn't provide him with certainty ... Contrasting certainty in Judaism and Christianity ... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more infor...