Why Theor‪y‬ Todd McGowan & Ryan Engley

In this episode, Ryan and Todd go through Freud's rich late text Civilization and Its Discontents. They discuss the oceanic feeling, Freud's critique of religion, the relationship between death drive and aggression, and other subjects that Freud engages.

In this episode, Ryan and Todd chronicle the varied evolution of the concept of jouissance in the thought of Jacques Lacan and offer their idea of the best formulation of this concept. They touch on the key moments, from the association of jouissance with transgression in Seminar VII to the identification of jouissance with the failure of the sexual relationship in Seminar XX.

In their continuing series on Jacques Lacan's seminars, Ryan and Todd devote this episode to Seminar 2, which focuses on the relationship between the imaginary and symbolic registers. They discuss Lacan's early conception of death drive, his reading of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Purloined Letter," and the game of odds and evens, as well as other aspects of the seminar.

In this special episode, Ryan and Todd comment on the recent attempted coup in the United States. They address the significance of this act of domestic terrorism for the actuality of Right and Left on the political scene.

In this episode, Ryan and Todd analyze the new Christopher Nolan film Tenet. They discuss the film in terms of the concept of Nachtraglickeit or retroactivity, as well as exploring the conflicted politics that Nolan proposes in the film.

In this episode, Ryan and Todd investigate the theoretical implications of popular music, focusing on groups such as the Replacements, the Talking Heads, and Roxy Music. They consider how the unconscious, drive, fantasy, and enjoyment manifest themselves in the works from these bands and others.