Why Theory

Todd McGowan & Ryan Engley

Why Theory brings continental philosophy and psyc…

  • 1 hour 17 minutes
    Hegel & Feminism

    Ryan and Todd address the fundamental connections between Hegelian philosophy and feminism. They discuss the role of contradiction in both lines of thought and focus on some of the major feminist readers of Hegel’s philosophy, including Gillian Rose, Catherine Malabou, and Rebecca Comay.

    11 November 2024, 1:17 am
  • 1 hour 14 minutes
    Aufhebung (Sublation)
    Ryan and Todd work to explain Hegel's central idea of Aufhebung (translated as "sublation"). This unique German term, which means to cancel, to preserve, and to lift up, provides the key for understanding the movement of Hegel's philosophy, but it is also the site for misunderstanding Hegel's project, which the show discusses.
    26 October 2024, 12:00 am
  • 1 hour 47 minutes
    Contemporary Horror
    Ryan and Todd continue their discussion of the horror film by focusing on the genre since Psycho. They discuss Night of the Living Dead, Carrie, The Shining, The Blair Witch Project, It Follows, and The Substance. Their theorize the modern horror film in relation to the psychoanalytic notion of the death drive.
    14 October 2024, 1:57 am
  • 1 hour 14 minutes
    Fredric Jameson
    Ryan and Todd pay tribute to the recently deceased theorist Fredric Jameson. They note his deep and wide-ranging contributions to a variety of fields and his unique ability to find something valuable in the object of his critique.
    29 September 2024, 1:57 am
  • 1 hour 29 minutes
    Horror Film
    Ryan and Todd explore the classical horror film in terms of the antagonism between life and the beyond, inclusive of death. They focus on the films The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Frankenstein, Invisible Man, Godzilla, and Psycho.
    16 September 2024, 2:11 am
  • 1 hour 32 minutes
    Heist Film
    Ryan and Todd develop their theory of the heist film as a genre, which they see as structured through the opposition between desire and its object. They examine closely Rififi, The Killing, Heat, Ocean's 11, and Inside Man, as well as touching on many other key films of the genre. Hugh Manon's film noir podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0aQXewYjXrMtTjwpJ18rg6
    2 September 2024, 1:35 am
  • 1 hour 41 minutes
    Sports Film
    Ryan and Todd explore the genre of the sports film, focusing on important entries in the genre such as Chariots of Fire, Rocky, and Heaven Can Wait, among others. They define this genre through the category of the impossible and discuss the relationship between possibility and impossibility as it plays out in the sports film.
    18 August 2024, 2:35 am
  • 1 hour 22 minutes
    New Introductory Lectures
    Ryan and Todd discuss what they see as the important moments from Freud's New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis--both its highlights and its lowlights. They explore the role that Freud's 1920 discovery of the death drive plays--or doesn't play--in this work.
    4 August 2024, 7:36 pm
  • 1 hour 19 minutes
    Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
    Ryan and Todd outline the arguments of Freud's Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis and highlight the key ideas that appear in this work. They also discuss what Freud mentions here that he doesn't address elsewhere.
    22 July 2024, 12:08 pm
  • 1 hour 13 minutes
    Suture
    Ryan and Todd delve into the concept of suture, as first developed by Jacques-Alain Miller. They trace the deformation that it underwent through the history of film studies and examine a few films where we can see the different understandings of suture at work.
    9 July 2024, 8:43 pm
  • 1 hour 13 minutes
    Extimacy
    Ryan and Todd discuss the Jacques Lacan's neologism "extimacy," which first occurs in Seminar VII and then disappears. But they theorize that this concept offers an excellent starting point for grasping Lacan's entire project, despite his own sparse use of it.
    23 June 2024, 8:45 pm
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