Podcast · Film & TV

Why Theory

by Why Theory · English · Film & TV

Why Theory brings continental philosophy and psychoanalytic theory together to examine cultural phenomena.

New episodes: Every two weeks
Typical length: 1 hr 18 min
Latest: 11 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

11 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 11 minNew

Future of an Illusion

On this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss Freud's Future of an Illusion , a text that would become overshadowed by his subsequent publication, Civilization and Its Discontents . The hosts discuss the relationship between the two texts--paying close attention to how the drive becomes figured and then reconfigured in the latter text--but are careful to stamp out where Illusion departs in focus and in substance from one Freud's most well-known works. The hosts also work through Freud’s thoughts on religion in Illusion and compare it against his later thoughts in Moses and Monotheism and more…

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

27 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 18 min
Neo Noir
On this episode, Ryan and Todd return to their film genre series to discuss the neo noir . As opposed to the classic noir period, which is named retroactively by French film critics (1941-1958), neo noir films were aware of how they fit into a specialized genre. Does this mean the Neo noir is more of a genre than the class noir? Less of one? Is it just a style? What unique affordances hold the genre together now that these films are made post-Code? This episode discusses these questions and more with extended reference to: The Long Goodbye, Body Heat, One False Move, and The Last Seduction…
13 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Divine Violence
On this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss the notion of divine violence. The conversation draws principally on an encounter staged between the term's evocation in Walter Benjamin's 1921 essay, "Toward a Critique of Violence" and the term's later deployment by Slavoj Žižek in his book On Violence . The conversation also touches on Giorgio Agamben's use of "bare life" (a phrase used, though translated slightly differently, by Benjamin in his essay) and how recent podcast conversations on Frantz Fanon overlap or depart from the concerns of divine violence. The Vader Sessions
30 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 13 min
Wretched of the Earth
On this episode, Ryan and Todd complete their Frantz Fanon duology by talking about his final completed work, Wretched of the Earth. The episode focuses on Fanon's "stretching" of both Marxism and psychoanalysis to ground his unique decolonial intervention.
17 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 22 min
Black Skin, White Masks
On this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss Frantz Fanon's decolonial classic, Black Skin, White Masks . The hosts work through the conversation surrounding his credentials as a psychoanalyst, his engagement with Freud, Lacan, Octave Mannoni, and Carl Jung, and his dialectical relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialism and his Marxism.
2 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 26 min
Adaptations
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 happen at a number of different levels but the most common is that film technology or conventions of filmmaking are altered, introduced, or changed in order to make a dynamic adaptation. The hosts discuss examples of film adaptations that bring a reading to bear on the source material and use the affordances of film…
19 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 25 min
The Odyssey
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 makes to the poem's narrative. It's spoiler-town so be wary after about 35 minutes. Apart from experiencing the technical feat of the film, the reason to see it is to see and consider the changes and alterations Nolan makes to the epic, its most famous sequences, and well-known characters. Referenced in this episode:…
6 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 28 min
Theorizing the World Cup
On this episode, Ryan & Todd theorize the World Cup as a public event that enables the non-expert to see complex theoretical notions, such as Alain Badiou's conceptualization of the event and Jean-Paul Sartre's idea of self-transcendence. The episode also discusses how the World Cup offers complex ways to view our relationship to the law, nationalism, and climate change. (Quick note: Thank you to every very early listener who noticed the previous upload was incorrect! Hope everyone enjoyed just Ryan's side of the audio. Todd said that probably made the episode better but, alas, we're back to…
21 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 21 min
What Is Literature? (Literature and Existentialism)
On this episode, Ryan and Todd complete their Sartre inflected trifecta of episodes by engaging his 1947 essay series What Is Literature? The hosts begin by talking about how much Sartre's method has meant to them respectively before moving on to engage the text's most famous claim: literature appeals to the reader's freedom. Sartre's diagnosis and prescription is that literary works--as opposed to poetry, music, and visual arts--must uniquely enact a praxis of "committed writing." For Sartre, committed writing is constant and conscious political awareness. Each text, according to Sartre,…
7 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 15 min
Michael Clayton
On this episode, Ryan and Todd cover writer-director Tony Gilroy's 2007 political thriller masterpiece, Michael Clayton . The hosts weave in Sartre's notion of committing oneself to a project from the previous episode and work through the narrative and formal elements that make Michael Clayton 's intervention exceptional for Hollywood film.
24 May 2026 · 1 hr 16 min
Existentialism Is A Humanism
On this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss Jean-Paul Sartre's 1945 lecture titled "Existentialism is a Humanism." In it, Sartre answers criticism that existentialism has received from lay people, concerned Christians, and Marxists, and clarifies what existentialism means and (more importantly) what it hopes to do and inspire in action. The existential method that Sartre advocates is universal and optimistic, advocating for political change by encouraging everyone to see that their individual actions include every other person in them. Ryan and Todd discuss the main thrust of the lecture,…
11 May 2026 · 1 hr 21 min
Impossible Professions
On this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss Freud's idea of the "impossible professions." First articulated in 1925, Freud is drawn to the idea that psychoanalysis is like government and education in that it proposes a necessary function without end. The intrinsic endlessness to the impossible professions often leaves them ripe for tendentious scrutiny. As we've seen over the last decade, those with roles in education, government, and medicine have had their expertise routinely ridiculed and undermined. The hosts each add an idea to Freud's initial proposition with Ryan offering that each of the…
26 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 14 min
Avarice
Following up some of the discussion points introduced in the previous episode on Ambition, this episode takes a stab at the deadly sin of Avarice. Beginning first with a historical and etymological look into Avarice and Greed, looking at when Greed overtook Avarice in common parlance and when the word moved from referring to a wider programming of miserly hoarding to a specific rapaciousness toward financial accumulation. Unsurprisingly, with the global adoption of capitalism, Avarice dropped out of common parlance and Greed saw a rebranding, with accumulation and self-interest becoming…
13 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Ambition
On this episode, Ryan and Todd tackle the fading specter of ambition as a tragic or negative quality. Far from being a minor rhetorical or social phenomenon, the two trace the embrace of ambition to the broader injunction to sell oneself as a brand. This episode will lay some theoretical groundwork down for the following episode which will be on Avarice (a return to long fallow Seven Deadly Sins series).
29 Mar 2026 · 1 hr 21 min
Transcendental Analytic (Kant's Critique of Pure Reason)
On this episode, Ryan and Todd return to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason to discuss the Transcendental Analytic section of the text. Topics include: form and content, Kantian causality, whether example(s) can work for exploring Kant's philosophy, the subject vs. subjectivism, simultaneity, and Super Metroid . Plus Ryan makes an Announcement. (Bonus points go to any listener who currently lives in a house boat.)
15 Mar 2026 · 1 hr 28 min
Rob Reiner: An Overview
On this episode, Ryan and Todd take a short break from their Kant Odyssey to discuss one of the podcast's most admired filmmakers: Rob Reiner. Coincidentally being released on Oscar's Sunday, the hosts dedicate their time to Reiner's first seven films-- This is Spinal Tap, The Sure Thing, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally..., Misery, and A Few Good Men. While discussing each film individually, the pair articulate and build upon the following claim: the same things that made Reiner unique as a filmmaker were the exact same things that made him easy to overlook as an auteur.
2 Mar 2026 · 1 hr 24 min
Transcendental Deduction (Kant's Critique of Pure Reason)
On this episode, Ryan and Todd cover the next major idea in Kant's first critique: the transcendental deduction. While explicating the trajectory of Kant's argument, the pair continue to track the latent and manifest influence of this section on Fichte, Hegel, Freud, Heidegger, and Lacan. Later, they try to bring film examples to bear on this section of Kant--including the stark difference between the A and B sections of the text.
15 Feb 2026 · 1 hr 14 min
Transcendental Aesthetic (Kant's Critique of Pure Reason)
On this episode, Ryan and Todd return to Kant and discuss the Transcendental Aesthetic from his Critique of Pure Reason. The hosts work through a sketch of Kant's idea, why he's proposing it, and why even the form of its argumentation is significant for the history of philosophy. The hosts also work over the influence of this section on Heidegger and propose a possible influence on Freud. Later the pair try to mobilize Kant's conception of time and space through pop culture example which is often seen in psychoanalytic treatments of Freud and Lacan (and even some with Hegel) but much less…
1 Feb 2026 · 1 hr 23 min
Superegoic Enjoyment
On this episode, Ryan and Todd return to the topic of the superego to discuss--for the first time at length--the enjoyment particular to it. Superegoic enjoyment is an idea that first appears in Freud though it is not fully developed as a concept until Lacan (briefly) and Žižek (massively). For Žižek, transgression of the written law enables the group identification with a suspension of the law. This is crucial to the superegoic enjoyment we see in, for example, the banality of breaking the speed limit and the horror of militarized police brutally suppressing a protest movement under special…
19 Jan 2026 · 1 hr 16 min
Structural Violence
On this episode, Ryan and Todd cover the topic of structural violence in both U.S. and global contexts. Beginning with an implicit debt to Slavoj Žižek's influential book Violence, the hosts move to clarify the idea as how unwritten dictates of oppression sustain themselves through their being unwritten Where it is easier to see the violence of a thrown punch, for example, structural violence is the invisibility structuring why the punch was thrown. Visible violence often hides its less visible structuring force. For this reason, the hosts discuss the difficulty of depicting structural…
4 Jan 2026 · 1 hr 12 min
Pluribus
On this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss the recently concluded first season of Apple's Pluribus . Taking on the ideas of duration, repetition, alienation, and isolation presented by the show, the hosts analyze how Pluribus delivers a fascinating treatment of life under contemporary capitalism. The hosts foreground how Pluribus dramatizes the tension between the group and the individual, a deftly staged dynamic that recalls a fundamental psychical torsion that psychoanalysis has long concerned itself with.
21 Dec 2025 · 1 hr 21 min
Millennium Christmas
On this year’s exploration of the Christmas film genre, Ryan and Todd look to three films from the early-2000s: The Family Stone , Love Actually , and The Family Man (but not Elf , to one host’s disappointment). The hosts theorize two core concepts across these films and, by extension, the Christmas films they have covered in general: deepening the cut in the family dynamic to integrate an antagonism and a Christmas articulation of Shakespeare’s Green World (a concept famously developed by Northrop Frye). The hosts layer these new ideas atop prior Christmas film genre concepts such as the…
7 Dec 2025 · 1 hr 12 min
The Episode
On this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss the episode--a fading television art. Beginning with a brief history of what early American Broadcasting aestheticized about television as form (e.g., its liveness), the hosts theorize the unique cut of the television episode, an analysis typically reserved for film media. The cut has been aesthetically mobilized by television (as seen in the banal yet artistically fruitful breaks for commercials), though it is precisely this cut dimension of television that is currently being lost in favor of cliffhanger heavy models of recent streaming television…
23 Nov 2025 · 1 hr 15 min
Lacan's Seminar 19: ...or Worse
In this episode, Ryan and Todd continue their commentaries on Jacques Lacan's seminars by turning their attention to Seminar XIX: ...or Worse. Lacan deepens his consideration of the non-relation in this seminar, further breaking from the signifying chain that had defined much of his earlier and middle work. Lacan also turns more toward mathematics and set theory to ground his discursive inquiry, which requires him to articulate a seemingly new notion of the real. Ultimately, the hosts try to draw out the consequences and coordinates of these dynamic moves in Lacan's late work. Relevant…
9 Nov 2025 · 1 hr 16 min
Lacan's Seminar 18: On a Discourse...
On this episode, Ryan and Todd continue their series of commentaries on Lacan's Seminars, this time bringing their attention to Seminar XVIII: On a Discourse that Might not Be a Semblance , which was recently published in an official English translation by Bruce Fink for Polity . The hosts work through the stakes and questions of this "morning after" seminar for Lacan's toward the quadratic formulation of the Four Discourses that will define his late work. Ultimately, the hosts see a stark break in the non-relation developed and insisted upon in XVIII from the signifying chain that had…
26 Oct 2025 · 1 hr 12 min
Voice
In this episode, Ryan and Todd complete their Gaze & Voice duology. While gaze & voice both enter into psychoanalytic theory as objects through Lacan's work at the same time, voice has received less critical attention since. The hosts put voice through a theoretical wringer, analyzing it at the levels of everyday life, aesthetics, and politics. Ultimately, the episode takes up the question of whether and to what extent voice can be mobilized as an emancipatory political concept.
12 Oct 2025 · 1 hr 24 min
Gaze
In this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss one of psychoanalytic theory’s most influential ideas: the gaze. The hosts talk about how Laura Mulvey’s gloss on “the male gaze” made the idea widespread across film theory and cultural studies in different formulations. Yet often missing in these accounts is how the gaze is a challenge to mastery, rather than a confirmation of it. The hosts work through two of Lacan’s examples to this effect, found in Holbein and Velázquez, before offering several of their own as they try to hone in on what makes this idea both evergreen and elusive.
28 Sep 2025 · 1 hr 41 min
Robert Redford
In this episode, Ryan and Todd pay tribute to the recently deceased film actor, director, and producer Robert Redford. Working through dueling top ten film lists, the hosts draw out a political and moral throughline that distinguishes Redford's long career. As the hosts contend, Redford's filmography is defined by an exploration of Kantian moral law and the nonverbal expression of an excess that cannot be named.
15 Sep 2025 · 1 hr 16 min
The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
In this episode, Ryan and Todd conclude their Marx duology by working through the excellent Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte . The hosts focus on Marx's narrative and progressive understanding of history as well as the famous notion of repetition expressed in the work's first two lines. The discussion concludes with a critical engagement with Marx's concept of the psyche and the peasantry.
1 Sep 2025 · 1 hr 18 min
1844 Manuscripts
In this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss Karl Marx's posthumously published Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 , colloquially known as the 1844 Manuscripts. They begin by discussing how teachable and approachable the text is before underlining the book's core arguments. While not intended for publication by Marx, this text nonetheless offers a highly structured look at Marx's developing thoughts on capitalism, alienation, and the legacy of Hegel. Toward the end of the episode, the hosts draw out the tension in the text between Marx's reading of Hegel as a philosopher of history…

About Why Theory

Why Theory brings continental philosophy and psychoanalytic theory together to examine cultural phenomena.

Why Theory is a English film & tv podcast from Why Theory. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: Why Theory
Language: English
Category: Film & TV
New episodes: Every two weeks
Typical length: 1 hr 18 min
Latest episode: 11 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1299863834
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