Why Theory

Ryan and Todd analyze the recently concluded television series Succession. They discuss it in terms of capitalist subjectivity, tragedy, the death drive, and the ideology of the family. There are spoi...

29 Maj 20231h 24min

Ryan and Todd explore the concept of the bottle episode from the production and analysis of television. They discuss a variety of its manifestations along with its theoretical importance as a form. ...

28 Maj 20231h 23min

Ryan and Todd explore the important ideas from Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, focusing especially on Nietzche's historical critique of morality, his perspectivalism, and his notion of the...

15 Maj 20231h 16min

Ryan and Todd discuss Todd's recent book The Racist Fantasy, which explores the psychic structure that underlies racism and that allows it to deliver enjoyment to those invested in it. They cover the ...

30 Apr 20231h 14min

Ryan and Todd delve into the formal limitations that define the medium of Twitter. They analyze the politics of Twitter and the impact of the takeover by Elon Musk. Ryan's article cited in the episo...

16 Apr 20231h 13min

Ryan and Todd delve into the western in its most radical manifestation, but they use as a starting point, the paradigmatic western Shane. They then examine more contemporary films that turn from the i...

31 Mars 20231h 35min

In their second episode devoted to the classical Hollywood genres, Ryan and Todd explore the western by focusing on some of the most popular and some of the most theoretically compelling. They discuss...

18 Mars 20231h 30min

Ryan and Todd lay out the key points in Jean-Paul Sartre's vast attempt to marry existentialism and Marxism--The Critique of Dialectical Reason. They discuss the best moments of this work and then att...

5 Mars 20231h 27min