All Episodes

Existence and Expectancy in “Waiting for Godot”

The Romance of Self-Destruction in “Withnail and I” (1987) – Part 2

The Romance of Self-Destruction in “Withnail and I” (1987)

The Ethics of Seeing in Susan Sontag’s “On Photography” (Part 2)

The Ethics of Seeing in Susan Sontag’s “On Photography”

The Music of Longing in “Amadeus” (1984) – Part 2

The Music of Longing in “Amadeus” (1984)

The Character of Authority in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” (Part 6)

The Character of Authority in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” (Part 5)

The Character of Authority in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” (Part 4)

The Character of Authority in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” (Part 3)

The Character of Authority in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” (Part 2)

The Character of Authority in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”

Society as Swindle in “The Third Man” (1949) – Part 2

Society as Swindle in “The Third Man” (1949)

The Meaning of Christmas Spirit in “Elf” (2003) – Part 2

The Meaning of Christmas Spirit in “Elf” (2003)

Erin’s New Book “Avail”

Bacchic Redemption in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975) (Part 2)

Bacchic Redemption in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975)

Spirit Unbound in Hawthorne’s “The Birth-Mark” and “Drowne’s Wooden Image” (Part 2)

Spirit Unbound in Hawthorne’s “The Birth-Mark” and “Drowne’s Wooden Image”

Faith and Industry in “There Will Be Blood” (Part 2)

Faith and Industry in “There Will Be Blood”

Freedom and Authority in Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People” (Part 2)

Freedom and Authority in Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People”

(post)script: Post-Gatsby

The American Dream in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” (Re-Release for 100th Anniversary)

Containment and Play in “Jaws” (Part 2)

Containment and Play in “Jaws”

The Door Slam Heard ‘Round the World: Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” (Part 2)

The Door Slam Heard ‘Round the World: Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House”

Anti-Mystery in “Picnic at Hanging Rock” (Part 2)

Anti-Mystery in “Picnic at Hanging Rock”

“The Indian to His Love” by William Butler Yeats

“Leda and the Swan” by William Butler Yeats

The Artifice of Eternity in Yeats’s “Sailing to Byzantium” (Part 2)

The Artifice of Eternity in Yeats’s “Sailing to Byzantium”

The Evil of Banality in “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968) – Part 2

The Evil of Banality in “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968)

“Where the Meanings Are” – Four Poems by Emily Dickinson – Part 4

“Where the Meanings Are” – Four Poems by Emily Dickinson – Part 3

“Where the Meanings Are” – Four Poems by Emily Dickinson – Part 2

“Where the Meanings Are” – Four Poems by Emily Dickinson

The Weight of Memory in Hitchcock’s “Rebecca” (1940) – Part 2

The Weight of Memory in Hitchcock’s “Rebecca” (1940)

Possibility and Loss in the Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke (Part 2)

Possibility and Loss in the Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke

Irony as Anesthetic in Robert Altman’s “M.A.S.H” (1970) – Part 2

Irony as Anesthetic in Robert Altman’s “M.A.S.H” (1970)

Aesthetic Humility in Marianne Moore’s “The Jerboa” (Part 2)

Aesthetic Humility in Marianne Moore’s “The Jerboa”

Word and Image in “Sunset Boulevard” (1950) – Part 2

Word and Image in “Sunset Boulevard” (1950)

The Sublime Mundane in Conrad Aiken’s “Morning Song of Senlin” (Part 2)

The Sublime Mundane in Conrad Aiken’s “Morning Song of Senlin”

The Aesthetics of Death in “Beetlejuice” (1988) (Part 2)

The Aesthetics of Death in “Beetlejuice” (1988)

A Strange Fashion of Forsaking in the Poetry of Thomas Wyatt (Part 2)

A Strange Fashion of Forsaking in the Poetry of Thomas Wyatt (Part 1)

Formal Meets Feral in “A New Leaf” (Elaine May, 1971) – Part 2

Formal Meets Feral in “A New Leaf” (Elaine May, 1971) – Part 1

Love Dishonored in Euripides’ “Medea” (Part 6)

Love Dishonored in Euripides’ “Medea” (Part 5)

Love Dishonored in Euripides’ “Medea” (Part 4)

Love Dishonored in Euripides’ “Medea” (Part 3)

Love Dishonored in Euripides’ “Medea” (Part 2)

Love Dishonored in Euripides’ “Medea” (Part 1)

Love and Loneliness in “Arthur” (1981) – Part 2

Love and Loneliness in “Arthur” (1981) – Part 1

Courtly Reciprocity in “Laustic” and “Guigemar” by Marie de France (Part 2)

Courtly Reciprocity in “Laustic” and “Guigemar” by Marie de France (Part 1)

Sight and Solitude in Le Samouraï (1967) by Jean-Pierre Melville (Part 2)

Sight and Solitude in Le Samouraï (1967) by Jean-Pierre Melville (Part 1)

“Notes from the Underground” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky: An Anatomy of Human Self-Destructiveness (Part 2)

“Notes from the Underground” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky: An Anatomy of Human Self-Destructiveness (Part 1)

Staking Claims in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948) (Part 2)

Staking Claims in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948) (Part 1)

Psychedelic Regrets in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Part 6)

Psychedelic Regrets in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” Part 5

Psychedelic Regrets in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Part 4)

Psychedelic Regrets in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Part 3)

Psychedelic Regrets in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Part 2)

Psychedelic Regrets in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

Sins of Omission in “On the Waterfront” (1954) (Part 2)

Sins of Omission in “On the Waterfront” (1954) (Part 1)

Consciousness Bemoaned in “Aubade” by Philip Larkin (Part 2)

Consciousness Bemoaned in “Aubade” by Philip Larkin (Part 1)

Identity and Infamy in “Citizen Kane” (1941) (Part 2)

Identity and Infamy in “Citizen Kane” (1941) (Part 1)

Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” (Part 6)

Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” (Part 5)

Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” (Part 4)

Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” (Part 3)

Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” (Part 2)

The Emptiness of Signification in Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” (Part 1)

(post)script: Post-Tryst (Woody Allen’s “Hannah and Her Sisters”)

The Tyranny of the Good in Woody Allen’s “Hannah and Her Sisters”

Odysseus and Penelope’s Comedy of Remarriage (“The Odyssey,” Postscript to Part 3)

Terminal Wooings in “The Odyssey” (Part 3 of 3)

Foolish Adventures in “The Odyssey” (Part 2 of 3)

Home as Identity in “The Odyssey”

Competing Affections in “The Lion in Winter”

Friendship and Honor in “Becket” (1964)

Losing Your Head in Alice Munro’s “Carried Away”

Time and Taboo in “Back to the Future” (1985)

The Violence of Redemption in John Donne’s “Batter My Heart” (Holy Sonnet 14)

Mortal Pretensions in John Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud” (Holy Sonnet 10)

Trauma and Repetition in Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown” (1974)

Better and Bested in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

Pagan Poetics in “Sunday Morning” by Wallace Stevens

Production for Use in “His Girl Friday”

Post-Doctoral Bedevilment in Christopher Marlowe’s “Dr. Faustus”

Fate and Blame in “Long Day’s Journey into Night”

Work as Madness in “The Bridge on the River Kwai” (1957)

What Falls Upon the Living in James Joyce’s “The Dead”

Finding Home in Stephen Spielberg’s “E.T.” (1982)

The Power of Calm: Two Wordsworth Sonnets

What Nature Betrays: Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” (Part 2)

Mother Nature’s Nurture in Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” (Part 1)

The Fool Gets Hurt in Fellini’s “La Strada” (1954)

False Roles and Fictitious Selves in “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin

(post)script: Post-Wonderful

The Pain of Anonymity in “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946)

(post)script: Is “Die Hard” a Christmas Movie?

Attachments “Die Hard” at Nakatomi Tower

Mad as Hell in “Network” (1976)

Autonomy and Incest in Sophocles’s “Oedipus Rex”

Gender Opera in “Tootsie”

Our Name is Subtext, Podcast of Podcasts. Hear our “Ozymandias” Discussion, Ye Listeners, and Despair!

Sex and Tech in “Alien” by Ridley Scott

Dead Wall Reveries in Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener”

Cursed Kids or Psych-Au Pair? “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James

Gentility and Injustice in “Gone with the Wind” (1939)

Realism as Cruelty in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams

Prestidigitocracy in “The Wizard of Oz” (1939)

Formulated Phrases in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot: Part 2

Disturbing the Universe in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot: Part 1

(post)script: Post-Apocalypse

At Home with War in “Apocalypse Now” (1979) by Francis Ford Coppola

Unsound Methods in Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”

On the Lam with “Thelma & Louise” (1991)

Spiritual Matters in Chekhov’s “The Student” and “A Medical Case”

Art and Action in Chekhov’s “The House with the Mezzanine”

Nipped by Love in Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Little Dog”

Business Gets Personal in “The Godfather” (1972)

(post)script: Post-Hall: Pimps, Pills, and Automobiles

Love and Nostalgia in Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall” (1977)

Yielding to Suggestion in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”

Clever Hopes in W. H. Auden’s “September 1, 1939”

The “Human Position” of Suffering in W. H. Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts”

Mutual Amusement in “The Awful Truth” (1937)

Against Specialization in Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler”

Kill Billy: Order and Innocence in Melville’s “Billy Budd”

Being Yourself in John Cassavetes’s “A Woman Under the Influence” (1974)

Worrying about the Future in Mike Nichols’ “The Graduate” (1967)

Slouching Towards Bethlehem in W.B. Yeats’ “The Second Coming”: Part 2

Things Fall Apart in W.B. Yeats’ “The Second Coming”: Part 1

Filial Ingratitude in in Shakespeare’s “King Lear”

The “Intelligent Way to Approach Marriage” in Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” (1954)

The Acceptance of Mortality in Keats’s “To Autumn”

Escape into Art in Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale”

Truth as Beauty in Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

Mastery and Repetition in “Groundhog Day” (1993)

Love and Wit in Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing”

(post)script: Debut

Expediency and Intimacy in Billy Wilder’s “The Apartment” (1960)

Marital Economics in Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”