Solomon & Smith

Solomon & Smith
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Books

Solomon & Smith discuss literature, philosophy, history, film, and the meaning of the universe.

  1. 5d ago

    A Gen Z Guide to The Best 19th Century Fiction | Sam Royer on Timeless Classics and Hidden Gems

    * Sam's full list pasted below * Please help us continue having these discussions on Patreon, or follow us on other Podcast channels here: https://linktr.ee/solomon_smith 1800s - Shank's Mare - Ikku Jippensha 1810s - Frankenstein - Mary Shelley 1820s - Ballads and Romances - Adam Mickiewicz 1830s - Eugene Onegin.- Alexander Pushkin 1840s - Courtesans and Opium - The Ignoramus of Yangzhou 1850s - Moby Dick - Hermann Melville 1860s - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll 1870s - The Gaucho Martin Fierro - Jose Hernandez 1880s - The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky 1890s - Selected Writings - Leopoldo Lugones 00:00 Introduction 04:40 Apocalyptic American Culture 06:26 How Sam Got into Reading 09:19 1800s 13:09 1810s 16:09 1820s 19:52 1830s 23:40 1840s 30:16 1850s 33:17 1860s 38:03 1870s 42:11 1880s 48:10 1890s

  2. Oct 23

    How Canon Debates RUINED the Bible and Star Wars | The Dogmatism of Pop Culture Myths

    Please help us continue having these discussions on Patreon, or follow us on other Podcast channels here: https://linktr.ee/solomon_smith 00:00 Intro 03:52 What is Canon? 05:38 Canon debates in Abrahamic Religions 08:50 How this maps onto Star Wars (in depth) 17:41 Lore, Doctrine, and Talmudic gloss 19:06 Why does Canon matter so much? Ancient Greece 24:17 The obsession with continuity and internal errors 28:47 Pirate editions, off-brand intellectual property, Virgil, Dickens, and Cervantes 33:30 True Canon exists in human imagination 35:29 Adaptation: books to films - Tolkien’s obsession with Canon 40:18 Tennyson and Milton - Jackson is to Tolkien what Virgil is to Homer what Christianity is to Judaism 45:46 Liberty to contradict 47:40 A chamber drama set on Kamino - gibberish words

  3. Oct 16

    This Film Changed English History (Forever?) | Jarman & Christopher Marlowe

    Theo Rollason joins Milo and Jack to discuss Queer Edward II, their new film built from thirty hours of unseen footage shot during the making of Derek Jarman’s Edward II, and to trace Jarman’s film back through Christopher Marlowe to the medieval king himself. Along the way: Jarman turns Renaissance history into Thatcher-era queer politics, Marlowe makes class more scandalous than homosexuality, Tilda Swinton transforms Isabella into a vampiric villain, Edward’s murder becomes entangled with AIDS and Jarman’s own mortality, Peter Greenaway attracts some professional jealousy, and a lost archive reveals the funny, chaotic, intimate reality of making one of British queer cinema’s defining films. 00:00 – Introduction 05:36 – Theo Rollason enters 11:52 – What Makes a Derek Jarman Film? 22:01 – How Jarman Reimagined Edward II 29:23 – Gay Love and Gay History 37:05 – Tilda Swinton: Queen of Thatcher 45:36 – Marlowe and Jarman: Kindred Artists 50:48 – Death & the AIDS Crisis 58:38 – 30 Hours of Lost Edward II Footage 1:03:50 – Derek Jarman vs Peter Greenaway 1:09:45 – What was Jarman like on set? 1:16:30 – Clip from Queer Edward II

  4. Oct 9

    Epstein, Lolita, and the P*rnification of Childhood

    00:00 Introduction 04:38 Lolita Summary 10:50 Did Epstein actually read/like Lolita? 14:32 Epstein's upbringing - boomer sexuality 19:51 Did male boomers create modern sexuality? 24:21 Differences between Epstein and Humbert 28:29 Do we all want to be children forever? 30:35 Our desires have been created for us 32:27 The modelling industry 34:55 Creation: of oneself, of others 36:30 Britney Spears, Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter 38:37 Piper Rockelle: the Gen Alpha twist on the American Dream 41:53 Creation in Lolita - The ending 45:34 Lolita - controversial then and now, for different reasons 48:19 To write a book properly, it needs to be misread 50:48 The paradoxes of our age around children and sex 53:13 Why Gen Z are turning away from boomer sex 57:10 Conclusion - Epstein is a boring loser.

  5. Oct 2

    Does Artistic Genius Come From the Devil? | Faust, Yeats, and the Poetic Sublime

    Please help us continue having these discussions on Patreon, or follow us on other Podcast channels here: https://linktr.ee/solomon_smith Richard Barakat's *Faust the Magician* is available here: https://shorturl.at/CDWx0 See also the below discussions: Richard Barakat: The Literary Collective (Spring 2025): https://youtu.be/rwecUdt0p28 Richard Barakat: Philosophic Dialogues from La Frontera (Spring 2024): https://youtu.be/YiiZbUErFcA Richard Barakat joins us to explore the strange relationship between poetry, magic, and the Devil, beginning with Marlowe and Goethe’s Faust tellings and ending with Richard’s own apocalyptic Faust for the 21st century. Along the way: Pindar raises men towards the gods, Ovid turns poetry into immortality, Yeats makes images into magical powers, paganism and Christianity collide and combine, artistic genius edges towards possession, and Faust’s desire to transcend the human becomes inseparable from the old suspicion that the arts are, somehow, the Devil’s domain. 00:00 – Are the Arts the Devil’s Domain? 06:24 – What Is the Magic of Poetry? 10:15 – Marlowe, Goethe, and their Fausts 19:37 – Pagan Gods, Christianity, and Syncretism 27:43 – Pindar and Becoming Like the Gods 38:52 – What Makes Great Art Ineffable? 41:42 – Writing a Darker Faust for the 21st Century 49:50 – Faustian Knowledge, Faustian Power 52:32 – Yeats the Magician 57:20 – Ovid, Transformation, and Artistic Immortality 01:07:16 – Yeats: Leda and the Byzantium Poems 01:22:33 – Satan's Faustian Bargain 01:30:13 – Can Art Create Gods?

  6. Sep 25

    Is the Quran the EXACT Speech of God? Islamic Theology Explained | Ramon Harvey

    Please help us continue having these discussions on Patreon, or follow us on other Podcast channels here: https://linktr.ee/solomon_smith 00:00:00 Intro 00:05:30 Ramon arrives - poetic epigraph 00:06:30 What does it mean for God to Speak? 00:09:47 Is Arabic Special? Is it older than Nature? 00:12:04 Is the Quran translated into Arabic from Transcendent Speech? 00:14:11 Could putting God's words in a human language degrade them? 00:18:41 Are Arabic speakers especially chosen by God? Is Islam exclusive? 00:23:05 Should all Muslims learn Classical Arabic? 00:25:48 If you have two sentences that say the same thing in different words, could they both be from God? 00:32:49 What is the basis of the Quran's authority? 00:39:21 Variants of the Quran 00:48:22 The first printed Qurans. Literacy. 00:52:55 Can deaf illiterate people experience the Quran? 00:56:55 The mysteries of meaning. How do words mean things? 01:01:40 Is beauty truth? Is the Quran beautiful? 01:12:37 Would God choose to reveal himself in common language? 01:16:13 Did anyone ever try to write a better Quran? 01:22:25 The proof of the Quran lies in its effect on people. 01:27:16 Why did God stop revealing himself? Why are there no prophets after Muhammad? 01:32:10 Is God active in the lives of all humans? 01:34:22 Did the companions' editorial power cease after their death?

  7. Sep 18

    Consciousness is NOT an illusion... REALITY IS | William Seager

    Please help us continue having these discussions on Patreon, or follow us on other Podcast channels here: https://linktr.ee/solomon_smith 00:00:00 Intro 00:07:38 Why Does Consciousness Break Science 00:10:40 Is Life Special? Biophychism: Is Life Consciousness? 00:14:40 Are Observations (Quantum Physics) Dependent on Consciousness? 00:18:10 A Unique Element of Consciousness, distinguishing it from Life 00:21:25 Why is Consciousness Not A Vague Concept? 00:26:40 Are Our Brains Lying to Us? Is Consciousness an Illusion 00:32:58 Is Artificial Intelligence Conscious? 00:35:00 Epiphenomenalism 00:39:25 The Matrix and Divorce of Mind and Reality 00:42:25 How Much of Our Awareness Relies on Sense Data? 00:48:40 Pure Being and Pure Consciousness 00:52:12 Panpsychism, and how it solves the problem of consciousness 00:56:45 Mysterianism and Colin McGinn 00:59:06 Is Panpsychism just sexed-up materialism? 01:03:17 Weak vs. Strong Emergence 01:07:25 Is Panpsychism an Imaginary Science? 01:10:45 Consciousness is Integrated Information 01:14:08 Cosmopsychism 01:20:13 Physical Reactivity is the Signature of Consciousness 01:23:39 Could dark matter or antimatter be without consciousness?

  8. Sep 15

    The Dark Religion of American Literature | Taylor Caron on the Neo-Gnostics

    Please help us continue having these discussions on Patreon, or follow us on other Podcast channels here: https://linktr.ee/solomon_smith Taylor returns to take Milo and Jack through ten great works of American "Gnostic" literature, beginning with Emerson’s Nature and ending, exactly a century later, with Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! Along the way: Jones Very believes himself to be Christ, Hawthorne discovers the stain in creation, Ahab declares war on visible reality, Whitman meets the “real Me”, Dickinson confronts an inaccessible God, and Melville, Bierce, West, and Faulkner push the American suspicion of the world into ever darker territory. Part two of our Gnostic Bonanza; the first part - on the original Gnostics - available here: https://youtu.be/brOyXDlaA-Y?si=DQGCLCq61lwZm4PG CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 03:24 I. Ralph Waldo Emerson – Nature (1836) 11:15 II. Jones Very – Essays and Poems (1839) 18:48 III. Nathaniel Hawthorne – Mosses from an Old Manse (1846) 24:46 IV. Herman Melville – Moby-Dick (1851) 34:55 V. Walt Whitman – Sea-Drift / “As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life” (1860) 41:21 VI. Emily Dickinson – Poems (1861–65) 50:53 VII. Herman Melville – Clarel (1876) 59:01 VIII. Ambrose Bierce – Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (1891) 1:04:10 IX. Nathanael West – Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) 1:07:38 X. William Faulkner – Absalom, Absalom! (1936) 1:21:04 American Gnosticism – Final Thoughts

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About

Solomon & Smith discuss literature, philosophy, history, film, and the meaning of the universe.

Information

  • Creator
    Solomon & Smith
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    55
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Solomon & Smith

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