Pod45

Pod45 returns with a discussion on, in, and around our recent cluster Samuel R. Delany's Improbable Communities. Contemporaries co-editor Francisco Robles hosts a conversation with cluster editor Blake Stricklin, and cluster contributors Y Howard, Kirin Wachter-Grene, Rebekah Sheldon, and Christopher Breu.

Pod45's 20th episode spectacular! To discuss our recent cluster on Suspicion, Contemporaries co-editor Francisco Robles is joined by cluster editor Eleanor Russell and cluster contributors Olivia Stowell, Sheera Talpaz, and Samuel Catlin. You can read all the essays in the Suspicion cluster now at: https://post45.org/sections/contemporaries-essays/suspicion/ Hosted and produced by Michael Docherty.

Welcome back to another episode of Pod45, the podcast companion to Post45: Contemporaries, with your host Michael Docherty. Today’s discussion responds to our recent cluster American Bimbo. Joining Michael in a conversation about the enduring potency and complexity of the bimbo as an American cultural figure, celebrity and media in the 2000s, and more recent hyperonline reclamations and revisions of bimbodom, are Emmeline Clein, who edited the cluster, and two of its fantastic contributors – Rax King and Rob Franklin. Read American Bimbo now at https://post45.org/sections/contemporaries-essays/american-bimbo, where you can also find hundreds more incisive and insightful essays on contemporary literature and culture. Emmeline Clein (emmelineclein.net; @emmelclein) is the author of Dead Weight (2024). Rax King (raxkingisdead.com; @raxkingisdead)is the author of Tacky (2021) and the forthcoming Sloppy (2025). Rob Franklin (robert-michael-franklin.com; @robfrank__) is the author of the forthcoming Great Black Hope (2025). Michael Docherty (michaeldocherty.co.uk; @maybeavalon) is the author of The Recursive Frontier: Race, Space, and the Literary Imagination of Los Angeles (2024). This episode was written, produced, and engineered by Michael Docherty for Post45.

Today on Pod45 we turn our attention to our recent cluster Reading Disco Elysium, edited by Jess Anderson and Carl White. Disco Elysium is a critically acclaimed videogame first released in 2019. It has been widely recognized for the richness of its storytelling, its political, moral, and ethical complexity, and how it plays with questions of choice, agency, and narrative structure in ways that fundamentally destabilize the gaming experience. That is to say, Disco Elysium is an incredibly readerly text, one that we were delighted to invite Jess, Carl, and their brilliant contributors to reflect on in this cluster. One of those contributors, Hayley Toth, joined Jess, Carl, and Contemporaries co-editor Michael Docherty, for this Pod45 conversation. You can find all the wonderful essays in Reading Disco Elysium at https://post45.org/sections/contemporaries-essays/reading-disco-elysium/ now. At https://post45.org/contemporaries/ you can also find our archive of over sixty more clusters. Follow us on Twitter/X, Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky: the handle everywhere is @AtPost45. If you’re interested in pitching us an idea for a cluster, please email us at [email protected]. Further information on what we look for in a pitch can be found on our website.

Pod45 returns after a hiatus with a bumper episode responding to Contemporary Literature from the Classroom, a recent cluster edited by Rebecca Roach - available now at post45.org/contemporaries. Today's episode is a departure from our usual format. We begin as we always do, with a rich and wide-ranging roundtable discussion building on the cluster at hand: Contemporaries co-editor Michael Docherty hosts; his guests are cluster editor Rebecca Roach, and cluster contributors John Roache (no relation) and Tim Lanzendörfer. But in the second half we bring you something different: a very special conversation between Rebecca and Adrienne Ghaly, co-creator of Read for Action, also known as the Humanitarian Book Club. Thanks for sticking with us at Pod45: we've got exciting plans afoot to start bringing you episodes on a more regular and reliable basis. If you're enjoying the episodes, please tell friends and colleagues, and don't forget to rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice. https://post45.org/sections/contemporaries-essays/contemporary-literature-from-the-classroom/ https://x.com/AtPost45 https://www.readforaction.org/