Why Theory

On this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss Rick Boothby's terrific recent book, Embracing ... more

Ryan and Todd discuss Lacan’s Seminar XVI: From an Other to the other. They focus on Lacan... more

Ryan and Todd pay tribute to David Lynch’s life and work by discussing each of his ten fea... more

Ryan and Todd work through Jacques Lacan’s Seminar X: Anxiety. Since this is the seminar t... more

In their annual Christmas special, Ryan and Todd explore the Lesbian Christmas film and th... more

Ryan and Todd explore the possibilities for praxis in the vein of the notorious philosophe... more

Ryan and Todd explore Hegel’s concept of the beautiful soul as he lays it out in the Pheno... more

Ryan and Todd address the fundamental connections between Hegelian philosophy and feminism... more

Ryan and Todd work to explain Hegel's central idea of Aufhebung (translated as "sublation"... more

Ryan and Todd continue their discussion of the horror film by focusing on the genre since ... more

Ryan and Todd pay tribute to the recently deceased theorist Fredric Jameson. They note his... more

Ryan and Todd explore the classical horror film in terms of the antagonism between life an... more

Ryan and Todd develop their theory of the heist film as a genre, which they see as structu... more

Ryan and Todd explore the genre of the sports film, focusing on important entries in the g... more

Ryan and Todd discuss what they see as the important moments from Freud's New Introductory... more

Ryan and Todd outline the arguments of Freud's Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis and... more

Ryan and Todd delve into the concept of suture, as first developed by Jacques-Alain Miller... more

Ryan and Todd discuss the Jacques Lacan's neologism "extimacy," which first occurs in Semi... more

Ryan and Todd explore the prequel as a narrative form. They consider its radical potential... more

Ryan and Todd theorize the modernist novel as a specific literary form, defined not by its... more

Ryan and Todd explore the problem of the ending, focusing on when and why the ending becom... more

Ryan and Todd analyze Slavoj Zizek's contribution in what may be his magnum opus--The Para... more

Ryan and Todd unpack Jacques Lacan's most well-known seminar--Seminar XI: The Four Fundame... more

Ryan and Todd analyze the complexity of Jacques Lacan's Seminar VII: The Ethics of Psychoa... more

Ryan and Todd continue their exploration of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason with t... more

Ryan and Todd interpret David Lynch's Blue Velvet by paying special attention to the Kanti... more