Why Theory
Why Theory brings continental philosophy and psychoanalytic theory together to examine cultural phenomena.
Episodes
April 28, 2024 • 72 mins
Ryan and Todd analyze Slavoj Zizek's contribution in what may be his magnum opus--The Parallax View. They discuss how he builds on the concept of parallax as originally articulated by Kojin Karatani and its implication for Zizek's understanding of politics.
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April 13, 2024 • 86 mins
Ryan and Todd unpack Jacques Lacan's most well-known seminar--Seminar XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. In doing so, they focus on Lacan's own exclusion as a starting point and then delve into two concepts that Lacan does not list among the fundamental ones--subjectivity and the objet a.
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March 30, 2024 • 88 mins
Ryan and Todd analyze the complexity of Jacques Lacan's Seminar VII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis. They discuss the various notions that appear there--from das Ding to sublimation to death drive to the ethics of desire.
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March 16, 2024 • 78 mins
Ryan and Todd continue their exploration of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason with the Introduction. They discuss the importance of his critique of dogmatic metaphysics and the incredible discovery of the synthetic a priori judgment.
Ryan's sports article: https://link.springer.com/journal/41282/online-first
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March 3, 2024 • 79 mins
Ryan and Todd interpret David Lynch's Blue Velvet by paying special attention to the Kantian dimension of the film. They consider the film in terms of the thing-in-itself and the sublime.
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February 18, 2024 • 80 mins
Ryan and Todd begin their analysis of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason by working through the prefaces to the first and second edition of the work. They focus on the radicality of Kant's breakthrough and the role that the limit plays in his philosophy.
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February 5, 2024 • 91 mins
Ryan and Todd consider the concept of symbolic castration as it develops in psychoanalysis and as it bears on both politics and culture. They relate symbolic castration to some of the key concepts in psychoanalytic theory, including fetishistic disavowal and the phallus.
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January 22, 2024 • 75 mins
Ryan and Todd explore the working of the dialectical reversal, how weaknesses can turn into strengths, how successes can turn into failures. They look at this through a variety of everyday examples and a few choice filmic ones.
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January 8, 2024 • 70 mins
Ryan and Todd think through Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, focusing especially on the parallels with psychoanalysis and the work's political significance. They also address the ramifications of the private language argument that Wittgenstein formulates.
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December 24, 2023 • 85 mins
Ryan and Todd discuss Ludwig Wittgenstein's project in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. They begin by looking at this project on its own terms and taking stock of its grand ambitions. Then they examine its intersection with the concerns of psychoanalysis and dialectics.
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December 12, 2023 • 82 mins
In their annual Christmas episode, Ryan and Todd look at the 1980s Christmas film, focusing on Christmas Story, Trading Places, Scrooged, Christmas Vacation, and Home Alone. They discuss the nostalgia that predominates this period of Christmas films and how this limits the political reach of these works.
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November 26, 2023 • 68 mins
Ryan and Todd examine perhaps the founding text of modern Western philosophy--Rene Descartes' Discourse on the Method. They consider how Descartes articulates an egalitarian philosophy through his conception of radical doubt and examine the influence of this text of subsequent thinkers and on theory today.
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November 13, 2023 • 72 mins
Ryan and Todd discuss the structure of envy, its relationship to jealousy, and its political implications. They make reference to Othello and Seven as landmark explorations of envy, while also noting its relationship with the other deadly sins.
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November 2, 2023 • 95 mins
Ryan and Todd discuss the generic development of science fiction cinema while also addressing its philosophical implications. They include a deeper analysis of Metropolis, The Thing From Another World, Forbidden Planet, and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
See:
Voyage to the Moon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLVChRVfZ74
Metropolis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_4no842TX8
Phantom Empire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qbf6KX8O98
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October 12, 2023 • 78 mins
Ryan and Todd present the philosophy of Leibniz as articulated in his late work the Monadology. They link this text to the breakthroughs of later thinkers such as Kant and Hegel, as well as discussing how Leibniz anticipates the contemporary situation.
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October 1, 2023 • 74 mins
Ryan and Todd analyze Machiavelli's The Prince by tracing its influence on later political thinkers, including Hegel, Gramsci, and Althusser. They discuss Machiavelli's novelty and his limitations as a thinker of the political act.
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September 16, 2023 • 76 mins
Ryan and Todd explore the idea of surplus enjoyment as the basis for a theory of capitalism. They consider the psychic hold that capitalism has in terms of the surplus enjoyment that it both promises and provides.
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September 2, 2023 • 78 mins
Ryan and Todd unpack Marx's concept of surplus value and explore its fundamental role in the interpretation of capitalist society. They discuss the relationship between surplus value and profit, while considering how we should think about the drive to amass surplus value.
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August 19, 2023 • 81 mins
Ryan and Todd offer their interpretation of Christopher Nolan's most recent film Oppenheimer. They focus on the relationship between the form of the film and its content, while considering the political implications of its depiction of the hero. They think about the film in relationship to the rest of Nolan's filmography.
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August 5, 2023 • 90 mins
Ryan and Todd interpret the film Barbie while responding to both leftist and rightist critiques of the film. They discuss the film's exploration of fantasy, its highlighting of contradiction, and its emphasis on the role of desire in politics.
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