Episode 322: A Theater of Simultaneous Possibilities (William James' "The Stream of Thought")
David and Tamler return to William James' monumental "Principles of Psychology", this time wading through his famous chapter "The Stream of Thought." We talk about his rejection of empiricist theories...
9 Dec 20251h 21min
Episode 320: Forgive Me (Kafka's "A Hunger Artist")
David and Tamler return to one of their favorites, Frans Kafka, this time on his beautiful and distressing short story "The Hunger Artist," a story that brims with metaphorical possibilities but also ...
11 Nov 20251h 29min
Episode 319: The Shadow of the Object (Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia")
David and Tamler transfer their libidinal energy to Freud's 1917 article "Mourning and Melancholia," in which he tries to understand what's going on with depression, attempts to distinguish it from no...
28 Okt 20251h 35min
Episode 318: A PTA Meeting
David and Tamler share some brief thoughts about Paul Thomas Anderson's latest masterpiece One Battle After Another before going deep on his most underrated movie Inherent Vice. We explore the many co...
14 Okt 20251h 48min
Episode 317: For Shame
What is the psychology of shame? Is the experience of shame a human universal? How can we investigate the nature of shame across cultures? David and Tamler dive into Richard Shweder's "Towards a Deep ...
30 Sep 20251h 23min
Episode 316: A Four-Letter Man (Hemingway's "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber")
David and Tamler go big game hunting and explore their first Hemingway short story "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." We dig into his characteristic themes of courage, cowardice, shifting pow...
16 Sep 20251h 33min
Episode 315: Ceaseless Striving (Schopenhauer's Pessimism)
David and Tamler tackle the topic chosen by our beloved Patreon supporters in the first VBW madness tournament – Schopenhauer. We discuss his essays "On the Sufferings of the World" and "The Vanity of...
2 Sep 20251h 30min
