Tertiary

In his 2017 acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in literature, Kazuo Ishiguro said that stories “communicate feelings, that they appeal to what we share as human beings across our borders and divides.” We started this podcast because we believe sharing stories, making deep connections, and bridging divides all appear to be going out of style.   For this week’s episode, your favorite Tertiary hos...

The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards have come and gone, but we’re still glued to our TVs—“binge watching” is a year-round affair, after all. For this week’s podcast, your favorite Tertiary hosts Heaven-Leigh and Justin respond to Emily Kirkpatrick’s recent Substack, “Does TV Actually Suck Now?”    Whether or not you think TV sucks, we’re interested in what today’s lauded series can teach us about ourse...

Is “travel” a requirement on the road to being a well-rounded, empathetic person? And if so, is there a correct way to travel? This week, your Tertiary hosts, Heaven-Leigh and Justin, take inspiration from the late, great Anthony Bourdain to discuss the ways travel and new experiences can change your life.   If traveling brings a little extra humility, empathy and openness to your life, listening...

Whether you’re a fan of “Fan Fiction” or not, the underground subgenre is making waves in the literary and entertainment industries—and we at Tertiary are paying attention.    For this week’s episode, we examine fan fiction on several levels, including the ways literary norms reify gender bias and heteronormativity, as well as a wider consideration of storytelling that opens a fascinating window i...

What happens when a classicist, novelist, and pundit enter a bar? (ha ha) Bad jokes aside, we are living through a *moment* in popular culture, fraught with man-splaining, flooded with click-bait nonsense, and—most worryingly—oozing sexism, racism, and transphobia. Who better to guide you through a close read of Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” but your favorite Tertiary hosts, Heaven-Leigh and J...

Ever get out of a movie and wish you could sit down with your closest, smartest friends and yap about it? Well, Movie Clubbers, that’s the gist of this very special Sidequest. In the heart of a heatwave, we brought our mics all the way to the movie theatre parking lot, just for you.    But we aren’t about vain pursuits, here at Tertiary—your favorite hosts Heaven-Leigh and Justin breakdown the com...

What does it mean to lead a good life? What does it mean to be a good person? We can all agree the universe doesn’t tend to offer clean answers to these kinds of questions—but your favorite Tertiary hosts, Heaven-Leigh and Justin, decided to tackle them anyway. The trouble, of course, is that a warming planet, barbaric geopolitics, and collapsing economy complicate the ways we ask these questions....

You’ve been lied to.    We all have, in one way or another. In this episode, your Tertiary hosts Heaven-Leigh and Justin discuss how to create a healthy relationship with skepticism, when (and when not) to “trust the experts,” and why it matters that we consume information with a grain of salt. This just might be the first issue we don’t solve, but we look forward to starting this important conver...

Shelby Rubino is a person too.    Sure, she just finished her doctorate in Clinical Psychology—and yeah, she recently published a peer-reviewed study in Integrative and Complementary Medicine observing the adverse effects of social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic—but she also binge watches “Sex in the City” like the rest of us, making her the picture-perfect inaugural Tertiary guest.   Even...

Listen, listeners—you spoke, and we listened. For today’s episode, Tertiary hosts Heaven-Leigh and Justin dive head first into our first-ever listener question: “ What do you think it will take for art-based platforms to regulate/condemn AI ‘art’ over profit?”    For a topic as gargantuan as artificial intelligence, it should come as no surprise that our conversation covered a lot of ground—from p...

The rightwing techno-elites are trying to hijack your dreams—and the only way to stop them is to listen to Tertiary’s latest episode! In a spiritual successor to our series on “Speculative Creatures,” your hosts Heaven-Leigh and Justin picked up where EP6: Eugenics, Fatalism, “The Last Messiah” left off to dissect the ways both the political “left” and “right” imagine humanity’s future. As these c...

“The city is the necessary instrument for the evolution of humankind.” —Paolo Soleri   You’ve heard of architecture, you’ve heard of ecology … but what happens when you smoosh those words together? You get “arcology,” a concept coined by Italian-American architect Paolo Soleri, out of which sprouted his ongoing experimental town in central Arizona called “Acrosanti.” Earlier this year, your #1 Ter...

There is a sense of despair in the air, driven by war, genocide, fascism, climate change, and so on. As tempting as it may be to throw up your hands, the real question is: How does resignation actually serve us? What should we be doing instead?   This week, your Tertiary hosts tackle issues ranging from fatalism, tribalism, tolerance vs. intolerance, and—most importantly—community building at the...

Identity politics are more contentious, today, than ever. As the cultural tug-o-war wages on, your Tertiary hosts Heaven-Leigh and Justin take a step back to examine the ways race, gender, and sex politics overlap and interact. Leaning on Kimberlé Crenshaw’s pivotal text defining “Intersectionality,” we touch on everything from white fragility and representation in media to current events like BLM...

In one of Tertiary’s rowdiest episodes yet, co-hosts Heaven-Leigh and Justin explore the politics of the American family unit—namely, the complicated culture of adoption in the United States. Beginning with Heaven-Leigh’s personal experience as an adoptee, we touch on everything from America’s hazy history of cultural anesthetization (both vis-à-vis transracial adoption and American Indian boardin...

It’s dreary out there, folks. Not just because Punxsutawney Phil cursed us with six more weeks of winter, either—the world has become a particularly dark place over the past few weeks.    With that in mind, this week Tertiary hosts Heaven-Leigh and Justin crack a window to let in a little fresh air and tackle questions like: How can art be a survival tool? What does speculative fiction have to tea...

You just know a podcast is going to be good when it begins with the words: “I’ve been thinking about God, lately.”    This week, Tertiary co-hosts Heaven-Leigh and Justin discuss the latest installment in Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out” series of films, Wake Up Dead Man (2025). Along the way, they break down their personal experiences with religion through the lens of William James’ theory that if a r...

I know what you’re thinking: Tertiary posts new episodes on Tuesdays, right?   Well, our first episode (“Decolonization is Not a Metaphor”) sparked so much debate, we decided to introduce an entirely new series to respond to listener feedback, circle back to particularly hot topics, and reserve for other special occasions.    We’re calling them “Side Quests.” (Don’t worry, Episode 2 is still comin...

What does it look like to put your money where your mouth is? Beyond voting, protesting, and donating to grassroots movements, what can people TODAY do to help solve the problems they see in the world?    This week, Tertiary hosts Heaven-Leigh and Justin break down the shortcomings of left wing rhetoric, through the lens of Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang’s essay, “Decolonization is not a metaphor” (li...

Get to know your hosts, Heaven-Leigh and Justin, and the inner workings of their brains through a quick Q&A session. What starts with covering the who, what, when, where and why behind Tertiary concludes with imagining life as Patient Zero in the apocalypse and creating solutions for all the bicycle training wheels we leave behind.    Our intro and outro music comes from "Cloud Dancer" by Kevi...