93 episodes
SUBTEXT Literature and Film Podcast SUBTEXT
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- Arts
SUBTEXT is a podcast about the human condition, and what we can learn about it from the greatest inventions of the human imagination: fiction, film, drama, poetry, essays, and criticism. Each episode, philosopher Wes Alwan and poet Erin O’Luanaigh explore life’s big questions by conducting a close reading of a text or film and co-writing an audio essay about it in real time.
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Staking Claims in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948) (Part 1)
It’s considered the definitive film on greed, a demonstration of just what the lust for gold can do to a man’s heart. Fred C. Dobbs starts out as a down-on-his-luck panhandler in a poor Mexican town and comes into a fortune of over $100,000 before the film’s end. Yet, in more ways than one, Dobbs never stops panhandling, never stops being subject to the vagaries of fate, to forces that might just as soon give as take away his fortune, and to the darkness within himself that he can neither understand nor control. Perhaps the film doesn’t chart his moral corruption and gradual descent into greed-fueled madness so much as it critiques the system that turned Dobbs into a beggar in the first place—a system which, the film might argue, teaches all of us to stick out our hands (and our necks) in the pursuit of profit. Wes & Erin discuss John Huston’s 1948 classic, "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre."
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Psychedelic Regrets in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Part 6)
Why do we rebel against our position within the natural world, even to the point of self-destruction? What is required to restore us? Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s classic poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” (Thanks to our sponsor for this episode, HelloFresh. Go to HelloFresh.com/subtextapps for free appetizers for life).
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Psychedelic Regrets in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” Part 5
Why do we rebel against our position within the natural world, even to the point of self-destruction? What is required to restore us? Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s classic poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” (Thanks to our sponsor for this episode, HelloFresh. Go to HelloFresh.com/subtextapps for free appetizers for life).
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Psychedelic Regrets in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Part 4)
Why do we rebel against our position within the natural world, even to the point of self-destruction? What is required to restore us? Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s classic poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” (Thanks to our sponsor for this episode, HelloFresh. Go to HelloFresh.com/subtextsweet for free dessert for life).
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Psychedelic Regrets in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Part 3)
Why do we rebel against our position within the natural world, even to the point of self-destruction? What is required to restore us? Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s classic poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”
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Psychedelic Regrets in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Part 2)
The ancient Mariner kills his Albatross with a carelessness that stands in stark contrast to his impulse for confession. For several days he and his shipmates feed the albatross, play with it, and treat it as if it were inhabited by a “Christian soul.” The mariner never tells the wedding guest why it is that he kills the bird, but the casual and seemingly unmotivated act is followed by a psychedelic nightmare that gives us some clues. Why do we rebel against our position within the natural world, even to the point of self-destruction? What is required to restore us? Wes & Erin discuss Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s classic poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”