SUBTEXT Literature and Film Podcast
Wes Alwan and Erin O'Luanaigh
Analysis of a book, film, play, or poem.
- 39 minutes 26 secondsThe Ethics of Seeing in Susan Sontag’s “On Photography” (Part 2)
Photography is a technology of contradictions. It is at once mechanical and mysterious, even magical. It furnishes evidence of presence while being a token of absence. It can show us proof but can’t, without accompanying narration or context, make us understand. And perhaps most perplexing of all, it is an imperialistic technology which, paradoxically, atomizes the world and democratizes all events and experiences, making each viewer of photographs the owner of a facsimile-world in his or her head. Wes & Erin discuss two essays from Susan Sontag’s collection, “On Photography,” “In Plato’s Cave” and “America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly,” and ask what constitutes photography’s “ethics of seeing,” and whether Sontag suggests an alternative comportment towards the camera, the subject, and the photographic image.
Upcoming Episodes: Withnail & I; Waiting for Godot
Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science.
Email [email protected] to enquire about advertising on the podcast.
23 March 2026, 9:00 am - 44 minutes 3 secondsThe Ethics of Seeing in Susan Sontag’s “On Photography”
Photography is a technology of contradictions. It is at once mechanical and mysterious, even magical. It furnishes evidence of presence while being a token of absence. It can show us proof but can’t, without accompanying narration or context, make us understand. And perhaps most perplexing of all, it is an imperialistic technology which, paradoxically, atomizes the world and democratizes all events and experiences, making each viewer of photographs the owner of a facsimile-world in his or her head. Wes & Erin discuss two essays from Susan Sontag’s collection, “On Photography,” “In Plato’s Cave” and “America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly,” and ask what constitutes photography’s “ethics of seeing,” and whether Sontag suggests an alternative comportment towards the camera, the subject, and the photographic image.
Upcoming Episodes: Withnail & I; Waiting for Godot
Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science.
Email [email protected] to enquire about advertising on the podcast.
17 March 2026, 1:07 am - 33 minutes 14 secondsThe Music of Longing in “Amadeus” (1984) – Part 2
Are Mozart’s gifts a glitch in divine accounting? Or are his flaws attendant on or even the result of his genius? And how can we account for the glitch in Salieri’s design, which permits longing to go unanswered by talent? Wes & Erin continue their discussion of the 1984 film “Amadeus,” directed by Milos Forman.
Upcoming Episodes: Susan Sontag’s On Photography; Withnail & I; Waiting for Godot
Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science.
Email [email protected] to enquire about advertising on the podcast.
9 March 2026, 9:00 am - 39 minutes 18 secondsThe Music of Longing in “Amadeus” (1984)
If an understanding of music implies a love of structure, perhaps the musician’s relationship to his art mirrors the one he has with authority, both human and divine. Salieri, whose father was a man of commerce, sees God as a kind of bank manager who records prayers and sacrifices as payments on a long-term loan of musical talent. Salieri’s economics work just fine until the arrival of Mozart, who seems to have put up no collateral—he’s ”a giggling, dirty creature” in the words of Salieri—but has received the equivalent of a billion-dollar loan. Are Mozart’s gifts a glitch in divine accounting? Or are his flaws attendant on or even the result of his genius? And how can we account for the glitch in Salieri’s design, which permits longing to go unanswered by talent? Wes & Erin discuss the 1984 film “Amadeus,” directed by Milos Forman.
Upcoming Episodes: Susan Sontag’s On Photography; Withnail & I; Waiting for Godot
Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science.
Email [email protected] to enquire about advertising on the podcast.
3 March 2026, 9:53 pm - 31 minutes 53 secondsThe Character of Authority in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” (Part 6)
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” and its sustained reflection on how political power is constructed, located, and legitimated.
Upcoming Episodes: “Amadeus,” Susan Sontag’s “On Photography.”
Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science.
Email [email protected] to enquire about advertising on the podcast.
23 February 2026, 10:00 am - 50 minutes 48 secondsThe Character of Authority in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” (Part 5)
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” and its sustained reflection on how political power is constructed, located, and legitimated.
Upcoming Episodes: “Amadeus,” Susan Sontag’s “On Photography.”
Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science.
Email [email protected] to enquire about advertising on the podcast.
18 February 2026, 7:21 pm - 44 minutes 31 secondsThe Character of Authority in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” (Part 4)
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” and its sustained reflection on how political power is constructed, located, and legitimated.
Upcoming Episodes: “Amadeus,” Susan Sontag’s “On Photography.”
Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science.
Email [email protected] to enquire about advertising on the podcast.
9 February 2026, 10:00 am - 45 minutes 58 secondsThe Character of Authority in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” (Part 3)
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” and its sustained reflection on how political power is constructed, located, and legitimated.
Upcoming Episodes: “Amadeus,” Susan Sontag’s “On Photography.”
Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science.
Email [email protected] to enquire about advertising on the podcast.
2 February 2026, 3:15 am - 49 minutes 27 secondsThe Character of Authority in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” (Part 2)
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” and its sustained reflection on how political power is constructed, located, and legitimated.
Upcoming Episodes: “Amadeus,” Susan Sontag.
Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science.
Email [email protected] to enquire about advertising on the podcast.
26 January 2026, 10:00 am - 49 minutes 51 secondsThe Character of Authority in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”
Brutus is an honorable man, but Caesar is Caesar: at the beginning of Shakespeare’s play, his name is near the point of becoming synonymous with dictatorial power, and his every wish, as Mark Antony points out, has the substance of a command. For the rebels who oppose him, this identification of political authority with personal will is a perversion of republican institutions, and a form of corruption that justifies any means of putting an end to it, even if that means killing a friend. Yet Brutus’s conception of himself as unflaggingly virtuous is one he in fact shares with Caesar, and perhaps reflects the same authoritarian tendency, in grounding the legitimacy of political action in the character of a particular actor. Then again, it is not clear that democratic institutions will always forestall authoritarian tendencies, rather than enable the masses to sanction absolute power in a charismatic leader. Wes & Erin discuss Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” and its sustained reflection on how political power is constructed, located, and legitimated.
Upcoming Episodes: “Amadeus,” Susan Sontag.
Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science.
Email [email protected] to enquire about advertising on the podcast.
20 January 2026, 2:22 am - 40 minutes 7 secondsSociety as Swindle in “The Third Man” (1949) – Part 2
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of the 1949 classic film “The Third Man,” about friendship and betrayal, and about the stories we tell ourselves in order to love, survive, kill, or even die.
Upcoming Episodes: “Julius Caesar.”
Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science.
Email [email protected] to enquire about advertising on the podcast.
12 January 2026, 10:00 am - More Episodes? Get the App