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Ordinary Unhappiness

Ordinary Unhappiness

By: Patrick & Abby
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A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now, featuring Abby Kluchin & Patrick Blanchfield

© 2026 Ordinary Unhappiness
Philosophy Political Science Politics & Government Social Sciences
Episodes
  • 131: Wild Analysis: Heated Rivalry Teaser
    Jan 31 2026

    Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness

    Abby and Patrick discuss the runaway streaming sensation, Heated Rivalry. Adapted from Rachel Reid’s Game Changers novels by Canadian director James Tierney, Heated Rivalry depicts a burgeoning romance between two young hockey players who are also bitter rivals. Taking up themes of athleticism, masculinity, language, desire, and more, Heated Rivalry also offers Abby and Patrick a perfect opportunity to sketch out a psychoanalytic perspective on the cultural meanings of professional sports, touching on topics like fantasy, regression, play, creativity, recognition, and beyond.

    Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847

    A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Follow us on social media:

    Linktree: https://linktr.ee/OrdinaryUnhappiness
    Twitter: @UnhappinessPod
    Instagram: @OrdinaryUnhappiness
    Patreon: patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness

    Theme song:
    Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
    https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO
    Provided by Fruits Music


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    7 mins
  • BONUS EPISODE: Romantasy, Fantasy, and Trauma
    Jan 28 2026

    Abby joins Moira Donegan and Adrian Daub on one of our favorite podcasts, In Bed With the Right! The topic is romantasy - as a genre of fiction, as a publishing phenomenon, and, above all, as a cultural symptom. What do readers - and women specifically - find in romantasy narratives? How does reading relate to play, and fantasy to trauma and healing? The three explore all these questions and more!

    Texts include:

    Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Thorns and Roses series

    Rebecca Yarros, Empyrean series

    Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery

    Andrea Dworkin, Women Hating

    Sigmund Freud, "Creative Writers and Daydreaming" (1907)

    Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847

    A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Follow us on social media:

    Linktree: https://linktr.ee/OrdinaryUnhappiness
    Twitter: @UnhappinessPod
    Instagram: @OrdinaryUnhappiness
    Patreon: patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness

    Theme song:
    Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
    https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO
    Provided by Fruits Music

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    1 hr and 16 mins
  • 130: Movies, Screens, and Fantasies feat. A.S. Hamrah
    Jan 24 2026

    Abby and Patrick welcome film critic A.S. Hamrah. Hamrah is a prolific writer of reviews, essays, and dispatches, and the two brand-new collections of his most recent work, Algorithm of the Night and Last Week in End Times Cinema, furnish Abby, Patrick, and Scott with the perfect opportunity to talk cinema, nostalgia, the political economy of movies, and much more. From moviegoing as an embodied experience to the nature of theaters as built environment, the three explore the overdetermined significance of going to sit in a dark room alongside strangers, simultaneously alone yet connected to one another. Unpacking the status of cinema as a quintessentially modern medium, they consider how developments like the smartphone, social media, Netflix, and the COVID-19 epidemic have reshaped both the film industry and our practices of media consumption. They also go deep into the relationship between cinema and television, addressing genre distinctions between soaps and prestige TV; the origins of reality TV in COPS, writers strikes and neoliberal austerity; and the direct line between reality TV and the Trumpian present. Along the way, Abby, Patrick, and Scott take up topics including: the social role of film criticism as a genre to popular discourses about fandom and “letting people enjoy things”; the loneliness of critics and the anomie of watching “second screen content”; and shifting norms of audience behavior (read: being rude). And it all builds to a debate over whether or not going to a movie versus binge-watching Netflix may express different fantasies, desires and anxieties about intimacy, control, and death. Silence your phones, get some popcorn, and enjoy!

    Texts cited:

    A.S. Hamrah, Last Week in End Times Cinema: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9781635902686/last-week-in-end-times-cinema/

    A.S. Hamrah, Algorithm of the Night: Film Writing 2019-2025: https://shop.nplusonemag.com/products/algorithm-of-the-night-by-a-s-hamrah

    A.S. Hamrah, The Earth Dies Stremaing: Film Writing 2002-2018: https://shop.nplusonemag.com/products/the-earth-dies-streaming-by-a-s-hamrah

    Jean-Louis Baudry, “Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus”

    Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History”

    Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847

    A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Follow us on social media:

    Linktree: https://linktr.ee/OrdinaryUnhappiness
    Twitter: @UnhappinessPod
    Instagram: @OrdinaryUnhappiness
    Patreon: patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness

    Theme song:
    Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
    https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO
    Provided by Fruits Music


    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 53 mins
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