Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and Films
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and Films

Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and Films

Wes Alwan and Erin O'Luanaigh

Overview
Episodes

Details

Subtext is a book club podcast for readers interested in what the greatest works of the human imagination say about life’s big questions. Each episode, philosopher Wes Alwan and poet Erin O’Luanaigh conduct a close reading of a text or film and co-write an audio essay about it in real time. It’s literary analysis, but in the best sense: we try not overly stuffy and pedantic, but rather focus on unearthing what’s most compelling about great books and movies, and how it is they can touch our lives in such a significant way.

Recent Episodes

The Sublime Mundane in Conrad Aiken’s “Morning Song of Senlin”
DEC 16, 2024
The Sublime Mundane in Conrad Aiken’s “Morning Song of Senlin”
Where the repetitions of ordinary life threaten to overwhelm any sense of the sublime, the poet Conrad Aiken seems to suggest that they can be transformed into a way of being connected to it. The mundane order is, after all, just a part of the cosmic.
play-circle
47 MIN
The Aesthetics of Death in “Beetlejuice” (1988) (Part 2)
DEC 9, 2024
The Aesthetics of Death in “Beetlejuice” (1988) (Part 2)
Wes and Erin continue their discussion of “Beetlejuice,” and what its battle royale between conflicting aesthetic sensibilities—rustic, gothic, and avant-garde—has to say about the connections between love, mortality,
play-circle
46 MIN
The Aesthetics of Death in “Beetlejuice” (1988)
DEC 2, 2024
The Aesthetics of Death in “Beetlejuice” (1988)
Adam and Barbara Maitland are dead, but their troubles have just begun. The farmhouse decor of their home is under threat from the pretentious modernism of Delia Deetze, and her plan to remake it in her own image could turn their post-life purgatory in...
play-circle
43 MIN
A Strange Fashion of Forsaking in the Poetry of Thomas Wyatt (Part 2)
NOV 25, 2024
A Strange Fashion of Forsaking in the Poetry of Thomas Wyatt (Part 2)
Wes & Erin discuss Thomas Wyatt’s “Whoso List to Hunt” and “They Flee from Me.” Thanks to our sponsor, the incredible online language school Lingoda. Save up to 50 percent on your language course by going to https://try.lingoda.
play-circle
42 MIN
A Strange Fashion of Forsaking in the Poetry of Thomas Wyatt (Part 1)
NOV 18, 2024
A Strange Fashion of Forsaking in the Poetry of Thomas Wyatt (Part 1)
As an advisor to Henry VIII and ambassador to France and Italy, poet Thomas Wyatt was something of a professional court-surfer, practiced in riding the peaks and troughs of royal favor. Such were his verbal and diplomatic gifts that,
play-circle
52 MIN