Black Skin, White Masks

On this episode, Ryan and Todd theorize the adaptation as a form of film. The episode takes its point of departure the continuing conversation over Nolan's Odyssey. Film adaptations, according to the hosts, must represent an intervention to the source text. This intervention can ...  Show more

On this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss Christopher Nolan's recent film. The conversation begins with Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey that Nolan consulted and adapted to the screen. Much of the conversation is focused on teasing out the consequences of the changes Nolan ...  Show more

Topics covered include: the thrill and terror of acting without a script, the meta nature of The Souvenir movies, Joanna Hogg as genius puppet master, the return of real film, Paul’s “chill and kind” rugby-playing brother, Irish gatekeeping, drama school memories, slo ...

This week, the fellas are back discussing Alenka Zupančič's Problemi essay, 'Lying on the Couch'. How does the psychoanalytic framework allow us to make sense of culture and lying, what is the asymmetry of a truth and a lie, and what did we think of the new Beatles song? Mike is ...  Show more

UNLOCKED: Today we're talking Žižek's chapter in his book Absolute Recoil called "The Violence of the Beginning". The reading begins with the notion that there is "nothing prior to the loss" of the sense of lost origins. Žižek then sets into play the idea of the self-alienation o ...  Show more

Slavoj Zizek, Todd McGowan, and Russ Sbriglia explore the points of greatest strength and greatest weakness in the thought of Jacques Lacan. They focus on the notion of surplus enjoyment, the formulas of sexuation, and the four discourses. They frame … Continue reading →