i have listened to just about every episode at least once, has definitely had a real influence on my thinking. was wondering: could we get a spinoza episode or two?? i just read spinoza’s ethics and would be interested in some thoughts on it from the pod someday. thanks for making these!

Todd was a fantastic professor of mine at Southwest Texas State University…now Texas State Umiversity. So happy I found him here…happy to hear him again, etc. BRIAN W

But can we stop saying “like” twice in every sentence? Makes everything sound, like, American juvenile.

I started with this pod when it first came out and over the last several years I’ve been able to read more and more theory. Thanks to these guys who are also generous in their responses when I’ve asked.

I just listened to your Barbie podcast & to your point about freedom from responsibility in fascism, I’d like to recommend doing an episode on Steven King’s The Stand. King deftly explored this topic in this book from way back in ‘78. I think it’d make a great pod. Thanks

I often benefit from the clarity Ryan and Todd will shed on different corners of theory. Yet, they frequently segue into what sounds to me like basic MSNBC politics, which tends to snap me out of the experience because the connections seem tenuous, and I get the sense that the politics precede the theory and shape where they are willing to go with critique.

You guys have made reading philosophy so much less overwhelming for me and helped me see how fascinating theory can be. I really appreciate the recommendations, especially the filmic ones, so keep them coming. <3

I mean they’re just spewing absolute nonsense in both episodes. No original thought, just twitter regurgitations. It’s a shame because they’re obviously smart guys (at least in a certain type of way), but they’ve become absolutely delusional in the current climate

In listening to the Film Noir episode, I was disappointed to hear the bigoted, casually anti-Catholic references to Joseph Breen. Without the Production Code there would have been no Golden Age of Hollywood. It would have been 1974 in 1934. Not only would it have been bad for cinema if there was no Code, but it would have been a fractious dissolute culture that needed to face WWII and the conquering of the Depression.

Great program; I’d love to see these folks play ringolevio with the lads from Very Bad Wizards.

Five stars

McGowan and Engley are intelligent, intelligible, funny, informative, and entertaining all at once. If you guys ever made a Patreon, I’d be first in line to donate. Also I second whoever suggested an episode on Deacon Blues. Might be hard to wring an hour of content, but a theory approach to Steely Dan would be the coolest thing ever.

Someone suggested this already but I would like to add on if you can improve the sound quality, it is hard to hear, thanks

We need a Jung episode and it needs to be 5 hours long

Is there any way to boost the decibels of these recordings? It’s the only podcast I listen to that’s too quiet to listen to on the subway.

You guys should do a list episode. What’s the theory take on end-of-year lists? What’s on your list?

Are you going to deal with it??? Isn’t there theory about the fact that the ecology is collapsing around us?? Or it’s of no concern outside the Critical Theory Tenure Tower?

Amazing show. Wild how you can hear the hosts coming up with great ideas and reactions in real time. Or at least they make it sound like they are coming up with the ideas during the show? It’s about time Freud returned from the realm of the repressed

Love the podcast! I’m a psychoanalyst and philosophy professor so it was more or less made for me. Also, I got my undergraduate philosophy professor into the show and he’s loving it too. Only one weird thing and I don’t know if it’s Apple or some kind of internal resistance on my part but every time I subscribe to the show a few days later it’s gone and I have to add it again. This never happens with any other show, just this one.

Available on Plex

The episodes I’ve listened to anyway. I keep my ears pretty open. And I hear things here that I want to talk to people about that I don’t hear anywhere else.

Can y’all please provide more complete show notes that include the books, authors, films, etc., that you mention (sometimes in passing)? I would be eternally grateful.

Huge fan of your podcast. It’s made me a Lacanian. Can you guys dedicate an episode to Seminar X “Anxiety”? Can you explain Lacan’s graph of anxiety, which seems more successful at inducing anxiety than explaining it. If anything, I want to hear you guys discuss “the lack of the lack.”

Love the show- can y’all do one on work and leisure?

The hosts are knowledgeable and engaging. They cover a decent range of topics and are always entertaining.

Been a listener for a while and admittedly helped me on my journey to pursue being a lacan psychotherapist. But also I have a request if y’all could do a review and analysis of Julia Ducournau’s film Titane (2021). There’s a transgressive, transformation of bodies as well as so much more. It’s quite a dense film and one of the things that interested me was how it presented sublimating aggression and the desire of penetrating orafices. But yes would love to hear both of you guys thoughts on the film! Thanks as always for the great discussions; basketball tangents and all. 🤗✨

Overall probably my favorite philosophy or theory podcast. Todd and Ryan do a good job elucidating difficult ideas. They’ve gone a long way towards winning me over to Lacan/Hegelian thought. If I have to gripe, it would be that they tend to be too rigidly wedded to the Lacan/Hegel framework, and can seem a bit uncharitable to other lenses. I appreciate the proselytes zeal, but perhaps there is a willful confusing of the map for the territory at times. Still great and illuminating content.

Browns fan here. Congrats Todd. Now do Levinas.

More Todd, less Ryan cutting off Todd’s thoughts please.

I believe that I understand some of this. It’s very good. Most likely the rest is even better.

Plsss do a show on the sopranos

Todd’s well established brilliance is always on display. Ryan is perhaps the most interesting theorist of serialist/television writing today. They are as personable as they insightful. Never pretentious. Often funny.

You know a show is good when the only low reviews are triggered foucauldians

I have been listening to this podcast obsessively since I discovered it. For me, It has really made a case for the value of psychoanalysis. I have since begun exploring Lacan’s work, and this podcast also functions quite well as a companion to understanding some confusions I’ve had regarding Lacan’s work. The hosts are great. I would love to have a beer with them, but dread the idea of discussing sports with them. (Thankfully they restrain themselves from doing so on this podcast, though I gather it isn’t always easy for them lol.)

This show should be called “Why Hegel is Great and Here’s Some Lacan to Explain Why (but only kinda)”. I followed this show because the topics are so enticing. But they do such terrible readings I have to give up. Their series on Deleuze was laughably bad, the episode on Biopower closed with a bizarre attempt to discredit Agamben, and I can’t even finish this Adorno episode. I’ve finally come around to the pattern: bring up a concept, interpret it poorly, discredit it, and then “isn’t Hegel so much better?”

Great show into the psychoanalytic left

Don’t engage a thinker without having a working grasp of that thinker’s thought. The Foucault caricature presented in the intro to biopower episode is two for one on the end cap at bad-faith mart.

Would really enjoy future discussions of the work of Jacqueline Rose and Amy Allen

to be continued ?

Good pod. Typically awesome stuff all around Was listening to an old episode and heard Todd say something ab what rejecting the LTV would do to Marxism. got me thinking, I would love an episode from you guys dealing with modern Marxian value-form theory/value criticism (heinrich, elson, wertkritik, etc.).

The only genuinely good theory podcast out there. These guys actually know what they’re talking about

Great conversations, great chemistry

Incredible podcast, thank you for the work you do for it! Have you considered doing an episode on Adorno?

It’s good folks and good for you

Call me crazy but I just can’t get enough of listening to two jokers with PHDs talk about books I’ve never read, concepts I scarcely understand, movies I’ve never seen. This has been essential pandemic listening for me. A loose interest in Zizek let me to the pod and my life has not been the same since. I’m a new man, or should I say... subject😉 Thanks for bringing theory to the plebs, friends! Ps: I just watched White Tiger and I’d love to hear what the hosts think.

I just have to say that Todd and Ryan have had a huge influence on my thinking. This podcast has taught more about Lacanian psychoanalysis than any other podcast, lecture series, secondary material, etc. The insights provided here are priceless to me. Big thanks to Ryan and Todd for all the incredible work they’re doing.

Currently making my way through the phenomenology. The commentary has been extremely helpful

Hosts Ryan and Todd demonstrate in every episode the continuing relevance of psychoanalysis and continental philosophy for understanding timeless problems as well as contemporary politics. They make smart critiques of right-wing and liberal-progressivist politics that don’t have nearly as much of a platform as they should. This is an absolute gem of a podcast and I deeply appreciate its existence. And now, a request: in the episodes on psychoanalysis, you sometimes make reference to the positions of the hysteric, the obsessive, and the paranoid, which I know are discussed by both Freud and Lacan. Can you discuss these positions in more detail, including the theoretical significance they have in Lacan’s thought but also why they remain helpful points of reference for understanding phenomenon in politics, culture, etc.? A possibly helpful touchstone—in Lecture VII, Lacan draws a connection between art, hysteria, and Verdrängung (repression); religion, obsessional neuroses, and Verschiebung (displacement); and science, paranoia, and Verwerfung (rejection).

Look, I wouldn’t say this lightly - it really is the best podcast out there. Two charming hosts with well-formed opinions and analysis on the world, politics, and the psyche. They do an amazing job demonstrating the influence of psychoanalytic philosophy (and a lot of other philosophy) on all areas of modern life. Pour yourself a glass of wine and take a drink anytime they say “Hegel”, “Marx”, “Lacan”, or “Joan Copjec” and you’re in for a buzz. I’ve learned a lot. Love it. Highly recommend.

Really enjoyed Seminar 1. I am currently working through Lacan’s seminars and this was an enlivening, helpful commentary. Looking forward to joining you for the rest (he said hopefully).