The American Vandal, from The Center for Mark Twain Studies Center for Mark Twain Studies

An attempt to triangulate politicization, professionalization, and publication by examining several periods in the history of criticism. The episode begins with Joe Locke describing an overt turn towards social justice in his music following police murder of George Floyd, followed by a discussion of the misperception of "Professing Criticism" as a call to depoliticize [7:00]. An epilogue to "The Chicago Fight" [17:00] and humanist criticism [24:00]. Discussion of the implicit politics of the paracademy [51:00], its emergence in response to conglomeration [56:00], and the reemergence of patronage [68:00] precede profile of Las Vegas Review of Books [81:00] and epilogue at University of Puerto Rico [100:30].

Cast (in order of appearance): Matt Seybold, Joe Locke, Bruce Robbins, John Guillory, Eddie Nik-Khah, Tom Lutz, Katie Kadue, John Hay, Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera

Soundtrack: Joe Locke's "Makram"

For episode bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/Paracademy, or subscribe to our newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.SubStack.com, where you will also receive episode transcripts.

The Chicago Critics won the Chicago Fight of the 1930s, but they lost the Chicago Cold War. Chicago Economics got its start dismantling the Chicago Plan. This episode covers the brief victory of the Neo-Aristotelians, the long tail of Economics Imperialism [18:30], the rivalry between economics and literary criticism [39:00], the Chicago Economists' parody of "Treasure Island" [55:00], the implicit alliance between Chicago Economics and the New Critics [60:00], and Robert Hutchins's dream of "The University of Utopia" [72:00]

Cast (in order of appearance): Edward Nik-Khah, Matt Seybold, Studs Terkel, Robert Hutchins, Anna-Dorothea Schneider, Christopher Newfield, Anna Kornbluh

Soundtrack: Joe Locke's "Makram"

For episode bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/ChicagoFight, or subscribe to our newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.SubStack.com, where you will also receive episode transcripts.

A deep dive into the Chicago Critics who inspired John Crowe Ransom's 1937 essay, "Criticism Inc.," as well as their working conditions at the University of Chicago under Robert Maynard Hutchins. His implementation of "The Chicago Plan" and the resulting "Chicago Fight" [9:00], the afterlives of the Chicago Critics in contemporary literary studies [30:00], the import of the Walgreen Hearings [49:00], and the seeding of the Chicago School of Economics.

Cast (in order of appearance): Matt Seybold, Bruce Robbins, Anna-Dorothea Schneider, John Guillory, Harold Langer, Edward Nik-Khah, Robert Maynard Hutchins

Soundtrack: Joe Locke's "Makram"

For episode bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/ChicagoFight, or subscribe to our newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.SubStack.com, where you will also receive episode transcripts.

What is the political economy of New Criticism? Are the racist and reactionary Cold War politics of the New Critics immanent to their trademark method: close reading? The episode begins with the story of Langston Hughes testifying before the the House Un-American Activities Committee on what goes into the interpretation of a poem. What constitutes "tactical criticism" [9:00]? Critics try to rescue close reading from the "bad politics" at its origins [38:00], endorse supplementary methods [59:00], and describe how New Criticism looks from outside the U.S. and U.K. [1:07.30].

Cast (in order of appearance): Langston Hughes, Andy Hines, Matt Seybold, Jed Esty, John Guillory, Anna Kornbluh, Christopher Newfield, Ignacio M. Sanchez Prado

Soundtrack: Joe Locke's "Makram"


For episode bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/NewCriticism, or subscribe to our newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.SubStack.com, where you will also receive episode transcripts.

Last week, West Virginia University announced that it would abolish its World Languages, Literatures, & Linguistics Department, proposing to replace it with automated digital instruction. This is the apotheosis of trends going back decades. In this episode we talk about the effects of monolingual education, the case study in Ponzi Austerity at WVU [5:00], alternative paths for literary studies [11:00], the cosmopolitan cultural abundance that is sometimes overlooked by Anglophone criticism [50:00], and Matt Seybold interviews Joe Locke about "Makram" and jazz education [57:00].

Cast (in order of appearance): Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera, Ignacio M. Sanchez Prado, Matt Seybold, Joe Locke

Soundtrack: Joe Locke's "Makram"

For episode bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/GeeGordonPonzi, or subscribe to our newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.SubStack.com, where you will also receive episode transcripts.

How has the systemic defunding and deprofessionalizing of humanities academia impacted literary criticism? Why is there such a flourishing culture industry if demand for cultural education is supposedly declining? We look to megatrends like U.S. hegemony, organizations like the MLA (6:30), analogues like the Eurozone Debt Crisis (19:30), mechanisms of funding and distribution (28:00), and potential futures of disruption and declinism (1:01.30).

Cast (in order of appearance): Jed Esty, Matt Seybold, Anna Kornbluh, Christopher Newfield, Yanis Varoufakis

Soundtrack: Joe Locke's "Makram"

For episode bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/PonziAusterity, or subscribe to our newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.SubStack.com, where you will also receive episode transcripts.