The Virtual Jewel Box

Tanner Humanities Center, University of Utah

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Named after our seminar room, The Virtual Jewel Box hosts conversations at the Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah. We share research, commentary, interviews, dialogue, and storytelling from across humanities disciplines. Views expressed on The Virtual Jewel Box do not represent the official views of the Center or University.

Aug 17

Filming Homer’s Odyssey, with Paisley Rekdal, Margaret Toscano, and Scott Black

Adaptations of ancient texts can reveal as much about the present as the past. What does Christopher Nolan’s film of The Odyssey tell us about how to think about war, heroism, and trauma? And what ideas from Homer does it leave behind? University of Utah faculty Paisley Rekdal and Margaret Toscano, with Tanner Humanities Center Director Scott Black, discuss hospitality, bed-making, and the complications of Odysseus himself. Episode image: Detail from Pellegrino Tibaldi, The Blinding of Polyphemus (1550–51), Sala di Ulisse, Palazzo Poggi, Bologna. Episode edited by Dani Lester. Named after our seminar room, The Virtual Jewel Box hosts conversations at the Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah. Views expressed on The Virtual Jewel Box do not represent the official views of the Center or University.
May 25

Real Housewives, Real Humanities - Jordan Rullo, Marcie Young Cancio, and Renato Olmedo-González

In this episode, we discuss the Tanner Humanities Center’s symposium—Receipts, Proof, Timeline: How We Watch The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City—with Jordan Rullo (Department of Psychology and therapist), Marcie Young Cancio (Department of Communication and founder of Amplify Utah), and Renato Olmedo-González (Salt Lake City Arts Council). They explore the underground sophistication of trash TV, toxic communication styles in relationships, and the power of uncomfortable laughter. You can read more about our April 10 RHOSLC symposium on our website, the Salt Lake Tribune, the Daily Utah Chronicle, and KUER. Episode image: Props table at the RHOSLC symposium, photo by Trish Griffee. Episode edited by Ethan Rauschkolb. Named after our seminar room, The Virtual Jewel Box hosts conversations at the Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah. Views expressed on The Virtual Jewel Box do not represent the official views of the Center or University.
Apr 21

Scoring systems, games, and value capture, with Thi Nguyen and Scott Black

How can scoring systems make games feel so joyful, fluid, and alive, yet drain the life from public institutions and everyday work? This is one of the central questions of a new book by University of Utah philosopher C. Thi Nguyen. In The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else’s Game, published this year by Penguin, Nguyen traces the philosophical and ideological aspects of scoring systems when used outside of play. With Tanner Humanities Center Director Scott Black, Nguyen discusses games as forms of portable agency, the problem of value capture, and the ways gamification and institutional metrics can narrow and impoverish human life. Recent reviews of The Score: The New York Times — Jennifer Szalai, “Why Keeping Score Isn’t Fun Anymore” The Washington Post — Becca Rothfeld, “A philosopher’s case for living playfully without keeping score” The Guardian — Tim Clare, “A brilliant warning about the gamification of everyday life” The New Yorker — Joshua Rothman, “Is Life a Game?” Episode art: Detail from Georges de La Tour, The Cheat with the Ace of Clubs, c. 1630-34. Kimbell Art Gallery. Episode edited by Ethan Rauschkolb. Named after our seminar room, The Virtual Jewel Box hosts conversations at the Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah. Views expressed on The Virtual Jewel Box do not represent the official views of the Center or University.
Apr 2

Nora Lange, author of Day Care and Us Fools, with Erin Beeghly

Nora Lange, author of Us Fools (2024), discusses her new collection of short stories, Day Care, with Erin Beeghly (Department of Philosophy). Their conversation touches on female desire, motherhood, mischief, and the strange pressures of contemporary life. They discuss the surreal charge of stories like “Hot Spot,” the autofictional elements of the title story, and Lange’s “careening” prose style, which moves through play, surprise, and sudden transformation without losing emotional depth. Along the way, they talk about siblings, marriage, daycare, deadlines, and the elastic feeling of time in parenting, as well as Lange’s interest in genre, from realism to the snow-globe science fiction of “Dog Star.” Episode art: Detail from Joris Hoefnagel, Seven Snails (c.1575/1590s), National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. Episode edited by Ethan Rauschkolb. Named after our seminar room, The Virtual Jewel Box hosts conversations at the Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah. Views expressed on The Virtual Jewel Box do not represent the official views of the Center or University.
Mar 17

How we watch The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City - Marcie Young-Cancio

In anticipation of our symposium on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City on April 10, Marcie Young-Cancio, Robert Carson, and Scott Black discuss the show from a humanities perspective, examining its treatment of faith, femininity, Utah culture, entrepreneurship, fan loyalty, and camp sensibility. Marcie Young-Cancio is Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Founder and Executive Director of Amplify Utah. See also: Receipts, Proof, Timeline: How We Watch the RHOSLC symposium program Heather L. King, “Tanner Humanities Center presents a scholarly deep dive into ‘The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’” @ the U Susan Sontag, “Notes on Camp” Episode edited by Ethan Rauschkolb. Named after our seminar room, The Virtual Jewel Box hosts conversations at the Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah. Views expressed on The Virtual Jewel Box do not represent the official views of the Center or University.
Mar 6

Enshittification, with Cory Doctorow and Matthew Potolsky

In this episode, Matt Potolsky (Professor of English) talks with writer and activist Cory Doctorow about digital privacy, platform decay, and the politics of monopoly. Drawing on his recent book, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, Doctorow argues that the erosion of privacy is inseparable from the rise of unchecked commercial surveillance, and that many people care deeply about privacy without recognizing it as such. They also discuss the three-stage collapse of digital platforms Robert Bork and the Chicago School’s influence on antitrust law the IBM antitrust case Yanis Varoufakis’s theory of techno-feudalism algorithmic wage discrimination effective altruism and longtermism AI as a fantasy of boss-without-workers the surprising global resurgence of anti-monopoly politics as a source of hope. Cory Doctorow is a journalist, blogger, and the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction. He is a longtime contributor to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and blogs at pluralistic.net. Episode edited by Ethan Rauschkolb. Named after our seminar room, The Virtual Jewel Box hosts conversations at the Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah. Views expressed on The Virtual Jewel Box do not represent the official views of the Center or University.
Feb 3

Great Books: Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf - Jessica Straley and Scott Black

In a new series of episodes, The Virtual Jewel Box will feature conversations about great books. Scott Black and Jessica Straley discuss Mrs. Dalloway as a novel of thresholds: between past and present, sound and silence, intimacy and distance. Reading closely from the opening line through Big Ben’s leaden circles, they show how Woolf’s stream of consciousness turns a single June day, a walk through London, and a party into an inquiry into memory, war, love, and social life. They invite readers to consider how Woolf’s prose, down to its use of the semicolon, reflects on perception, privacy, and what it means to live with other minds. Jessica Straley is Associate Professor of English at the University of Utah. See also: Jenny Noice, “A Hundred Years of Mrs. Dalloway,” JSTOR Daily. Episode art: Photo of Virginia Woolf, circa 1927. Virginia Woolf Monk's House photographs, Houghton Library, Harvard University. Episode edited by Ethan Rauschkolb. Named after our seminar room, The Virtual Jewel Box hosts conversations at the Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah. Views expressed on The Virtual Jewel Box do not represent the official views of the Center or University.
Jan 8

Aesthetics and empathy, with Joseph Metz and Scott Black

In this episode, Scott Black talks with literary scholar Joseph Metz about The Feeling of the Form: Empathy and Aesthetics from Büchner to Rilke (Cornell University Press), Metz’s cultural and intellectual history of empathy that traces the origins of the concept back to 19th-century German art theory. Drawing on close readings of Georg Büchner, Adalbert Stifter, and Rainer Maria Rilke, Metz shows how empathy originated as Einfühlung, a theory of bodily projection into objects and forms, before later becoming a model for interpersonal feeling. They also discuss Robert Vischer and Theodor Lipps, Kant and nineteenth-century neurophysiology, debates between vitalism and materialism, and the ethical limits of understanding others. Joseph Metz is Associate Professor of German in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at the University of Utah. Episode art: from Charles Le Brun, Expressions des passions de l’Ame, as a frontispiece to Henri Testelin, Sentimens des plus Habiles Peintres sur la Pratique de la Peinture et Sculpture, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Episode edited by Ethan Rauschkolb. Named after our seminar room, The Virtual Jewel Box hosts conversations at the Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah. Views expressed on The Virtual Jewel Box do not represent the official views of the Center or University.

Named after our seminar room, The Virtual Jewel Box hosts conversations at the Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah. We share research, commentary, interviews, dialogue, and storytelling from across humanities disciplines. Views expressed on The Virtual Jewel Box do not represent the official views of the Center or University.

Creator

Tanner Humanities Center, University of Utah
Years Active

2025 - 2026
Episodes

27
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
Show Website

The Virtual Jewel Box