Why Theory

Why Theory

Why Theory brings continental philosophy and psychoanalytic theory together to examine cultural phenomena.

  1. 21/12/2025

    Millennium Christmas

    On this year’s exploration of the Christmas film genre, Ryan and Todd look to three films from the early-2000s: The Family Stone, Love Actually, and The Family Man (but not Elf, to one host’s disappointment). The hosts theorize two core concepts across these films and, by extension, the Christmas films they have covered in general: deepening the cut in the family dynamic to integrate an antagonism and a Christmas articulation of Shakespeare’s Green World (a concept famously developed by Northrop Frye). The hosts layer these new ideas atop prior Christmas film genre concepts such as the necessity of the castration of the father, the misfit, the rejection of cynicism, and seeing a flawed person as though they are an unwrapped present. On a personal note (this is Ryan speaking), I just want to take a second to thank everyone for the support over the years. As I mention early in the episode, I recently made it through the tenure process successfully, which is a pretty big career milestone for me. It took an awful lot of work to get tenure, and I couldn’t have found as much depth and meaning in that work without this audience. Thank you, everyone.

    1 h y 21 min

  2. 07/12/2025

    The Episode

    On this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss the episode--a fading television art. Beginning with a brief history of what early American Broadcasting aestheticized about television as form (e.g., its liveness), the hosts theorize the unique cut of the television episode, an analysis typically reserved for film media. The cut has been aesthetically mobilized by television (as seen in the banal yet artistically fruitful breaks for commercials), though it is precisely this cut dimension of television that is currently being lost in favor of cliffhanger heavy models of recent streaming television series.

    1 h y 12 min

  3. 23/11/2025

    Lacan's Seminar 19: ...or Worse

    In this episode, Ryan and Todd continue their commentaries on Jacques Lacan's seminars by turning their attention to Seminar XIX: ...or Worse. Lacan deepens his consideration of the non-relation in this seminar, further breaking from the signifying chain that had defined much of his earlier and middle work. Lacan also turns more toward mathematics and set theory to ground his discursive inquiry, which requires him to articulate a seemingly new notion of the real. Ultimately, the hosts try to draw out the consequences and coordinates of these dynamic moves in Lacan's late work. Relevant Announcement! Ryan's book Seriality: Media and the Psychic Form of Everyday Life is available for preorder on a number of different websites. Here is the link to the publisher's page: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/seriality-9798216197782/ August 6th is the worldwide release date. GET EXCITED.

    1 h y 15 min

  4. 09/11/2025

    Lacan's Seminar 18: On a Discourse...

    On this episode, Ryan and Todd continue their series of commentaries on Lacan's Seminars, this time bringing their attention to Seminar XVIII: On a Discourse that Might not Be a Semblance, which was recently published in an official English translation by Bruce Fink for Polity. The hosts work through the stakes and questions of this "morning after" seminar for Lacan's toward the quadratic formulation of the Four Discourses that will define his late work. Ultimately, the hosts see a stark break in the non-relation developed and insisted upon in XVIII from the signifying chain that had defined Lacan's work and thinking up to this point.

    1 h y 16 min

  5. 26/10/2025

    Voice

    In this episode, Ryan and Todd complete their Gaze & Voice duology. While gaze & voice both enter into psychoanalytic theory as objects through Lacan's work at the same time, voice has received less critical attention since. The hosts put voice through a theoretical wringer, analyzing it at the levels of everyday life, aesthetics, and politics. Ultimately, the episode takes up the question of whether and to what extent voice can be mobilized as an emancipatory political concept.

    1 h y 12 min

  6. 12/10/2025

    Gaze

    In this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss one of psychoanalytic theory’s most influential ideas: the gaze. The hosts talk about how Laura Mulvey’s gloss on “the male gaze” made the idea widespread across film theory and cultural studies in different formulations. Yet often missing in these accounts is how the gaze is a challenge to mastery, rather than a confirmation of it. The hosts work through two of Lacan’s examples to this effect, found in Holbein and Velázquez, before offering several of their own as they try to hone in on what makes this idea both evergreen and elusive.

    1 h y 24 min

  7. 28/09/2025

    Robert Redford

    In this episode, Ryan and Todd pay tribute to the recently deceased film actor, director, and producer Robert Redford. Working through dueling top ten film lists, the hosts draw out a political and moral throughline that distinguishes Redford's long career. As the hosts contend, Redford's filmography is defined by an exploration of Kantian moral law and the nonverbal expression of an excess that cannot be named.

    1 h y 41 min

  8. 15/09/2025

    The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

    In this episode, Ryan and Todd conclude their Marx duology by working through the excellent Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. The hosts focus on Marx's narrative and progressive understanding of history as well as the famous notion of repetition expressed in the work's first two lines. The discussion concludes with a critical engagement with Marx's concept of the psyche and the peasantry.

    1 h y 16 min
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Why Theory brings continental philosophy and psychoanalytic theory together to examine cultural phenomena.

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  • Creador
    Why Theory
  • Años de actividad
    2017 - 2025
  • Episodios
    209
  • Clasificación
    Explícito
  • Copyright
    © Why Theory
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    Why Theory

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