Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode. Listen to a preview. Hear this part ad-free. On "Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective" (1988), "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century" (1985), "A Game of Cat’s Cradle: Science Studies, Feminist Theory, Cultural Studies" Continue Reading …
Ep. 263: Lise Van Boxel’s “Warspeak” on Strategies for Valuing (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode. Listen to a preview. Lise was one of the hosts of PEL network podcast Combat & Classics and a St. John's Santa Fe tutor. She passed away last year, but not before finishing her life's work, Warspeak, which evolved over many years out of her dissertation on Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals. Dylan and Seth are joined by guests Continue Reading …
Ep. 263: Lise Van Boxel’s “Warspeak” on Strategies for Valuing (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on Warspeak: Nietzsche's Victory Over Nihilism with guests Jeff Black and Michael Grenke. We get more into how Lise describes the relationship of the feminine principle of Becoming with the masculine principle of Being. This should be "agnoistic" (creative tension!) and involves seduction, just like Nietzsche's writing style seduces readers into Continue Reading …
Ep. 263: Lise Van Boxel’s “Warspeak” on Strategies for Valuing (Part One for Supporters)
Lise was one of the hosts of PEL network podcast Combat & Classics and a St. John's Santa Fe tutor. She passed away last year, but not before finishing her life's work, Warspeak, which evolved over many years out of her dissertation on Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals. Dylan and Seth are joined by guests Michael Grenke and Jeff Black (both teach at St. John's in Continue Reading …
Pretty Much Pop #33: The Heroine’s Journey w/ Vi Burlew
Pretty Much Pop taps in to what today's youth are talking about... or at least what they're writing their term papers on. Our guest Vi Burlew has arisen, a shining figure clad in mail, carrying aloft a shimmering broadsword (...and presumably a trapper keeper; the kids today still use those, right? Damn, we are old.) to bring your hosts Mark, Erica, and Brian this topic about Continue Reading …
Ep. 235: Judith Butler’s “Gender Trouble” (Part Three)
Concluding on Gender Trouble (1990). It's a different day, and we've trimmed down to just Mark, Wes, and Seth to cover the latter portions of our assigned reading, especially part I, section v: "Identity, Set, and the Metaphysics of Substance," and part III, section iv: "Subversive Bodily Acts: Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions." We also added two articles Continue Reading …
Ep. 235: Judith Butler’s “Gender Trouble” (Part Two)
More Gender Trouble (1990) with Jennifer Hansen. We get into the metaphysics of substance (are gender and sex attributes that a person has, or is there a better way to describe the situation?), performatives, and what Butler sees as the available mechanisms for changing gender norms. We compare the different views of femininity within male-defined conceptual space according Continue Reading …
Ep. 235: Judith Butler’s “Gender Trouble” (Citizen Edition)
On Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990). Is gender socially constructed, and if so, how? Butler describes gender not as an essential quality of a person, but as "performed," as habits of acting in certain ways in accordance with customs. But it's not that we can simply recognize that customs could have been different and so throw out gender Continue Reading …
Ep. 235: Judith Butler’s “Gender Trouble” (Part One)
On Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990). Is gender socially constructed, and if so, how? Butler describes gender not as an essential quality of a person, but as "performed," as habits of acting in certain ways in accordance with customs. But it's not that we can simply recognize that customs could have been different and so throw out gender Continue Reading …
Ep. 234: Beauvoir on Romance in “The Second Sex” (Part Two)
Concluding Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949): "The Woman in Love" and "Myths" with guest Jennifer Hansen. We continue on the ailments of women under patriarchy as well as the existential problems that we're all subject to. Are we doomed to isolation, or does existentialism allow for intimacy, and what does this look like? Is marriage as life-long commitment in "bad Continue Reading …
Ep. 234: Beauvoir on Romance in “The Second Sex” (Part One)
On Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949): "The Woman in Love" and "Myths" with guest Jennifer Hansen. Our ep. 232 laid out Beauvoir's picture of the Othered Woman, deprived of agency and hence pretty f'ed up. Now we consider the consequences of this situation for romantic love. In "The Woman in Love" (vol. 2, part III, ch. 12), we get a psychological picture of the Continue Reading …
Ep. 234: Beauvoir on Romance in “The Second Sex” (Citizen Edition)
On Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949): "The Woman in Love" and "Myths" with guest Jennifer Hansen. We explore the maladies of love, try a little to figure how B's picture relates to modern romance and what her positive prescription for good love is, and use the recent film A Marriage Story as a case study. Our ep. 232 laid out Beauvoir's picture of the Othered Woman, Continue Reading …
Ep. 232: Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex” (Part Two)
Continuing Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949) with guest Jennifer Hansen. We explore the Hegelian foundations of the text: How does one become a Subject and how do women traditionally get shut out of this process? What do they do to compensate for or react to being so mutilated? We get into the "Lived Experience" sections of the text where Beauvoir details how this Continue Reading …
Ep. 232: Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex” (Part One)
On Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949): the intro, conclusion, “Woman’s Situation and Character” and parts of “Lived Experience," with guest Jennifer Hansen. According to Beauvoir, Woman (the "kept" woman of history that was still common in her time and not unheard of now) is conceived of by society (and hence by herself) as "Other." Men created society, own all the Continue Reading …
Ep. 232: Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex” (Citizen Edition)
On Simone De Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949): the intro, conclusion, “Woman’s Situation and Character,” and parts of “Lived Experience," with guest Jennifer Hansen. According to Beauvoir, Woman (the "kept" woman of history that was still common in her time and not unheard of now) is conceived of by society (and hence by herself) as "Other." Men created society, own all the Continue Reading …
Ep. 202: Julia Kristeva on Disgust, Fear, and the Self (Part Two)
Continuing on Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, ch. 1 and 2. We try to get clearer on Kristeva's talk of "object," the relationship between language and abjection, how Kristeva is advancing on Freud, how to be a mom that allows a kid to separate in a healthy way, and how abjection plays into religion and writing. Listen to part one first, or get the unbroken, Continue Reading …
Ep. 202: Julia Kristeva on Disgust, Fear and the Self (Part One)
On Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1980), chapters 1 and 2. What is horror? Kristeva's book is about a process she calls "abjection," where we violently reject things like corpses, bodily wastes and other fluids, and the Lovecraftian unnameable that lurks at the edge of our awareness, hideously inhuman and indifferent to our suffering. The book is also all about Continue Reading …
Ep. 202: Julia Kristeva on Disgust, Fear and the Self (Citizen Edition)
On Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1980), chapters 1 and 2. What is horror? Kristeva's book is about a process she calls "abjection," where we violently reject things like corpses, bodily wastes and other fluids, and the Lovecraftian unnameable that lurks at the edge of our awareness, hideously inhuman and indifferent to our suffering. The book is also all about Continue Reading …
Ep. 188: Discussing “Lysistrata” and Politics with Lucy and Emily (Part Two)
Concluding our discussion of Aristophanes's play with Lucy Lawless and Emily Perkins. We focus on trying to connect its lessons to the here and now: Is Lysistrata's victory properly described as the ascension of some kind of "feminine spirit" over warlike values, and how does that actually relate to women's struggles now to attain positions of power? Is sex helpful to the Continue Reading …
Ep. 188: Discussing “Lysistrata” and Politics with Lucy and Emily (Part One)
We are rejoined by actresses Lucy Lawless and Emily Perkins to discuss Aristophanes's bawdy play. Listen to us perform it first. Supplementary readings included Jeffery Henderson's introduction to his 1988 translation of the play; "Sexual Humor and Harmony in Lysistrata" by Jay M. Semel (1981); and "The 'Female Intruder' Reconsidered: Women in Aristophanes' Lysistrata and Continue Reading …