Cultural Criticism

Fredric Jameson’s most wide-ranging work seeks to crystalize a definition of ”postmodernism”. Jameson’s inquiry looks at the postmodern across a wide landscape, from “high” art to “low” from market ideology to architecture, from painting to “punk” film, from video art to literature.

The rollicking saga of reality television, a “sweeping” (The Washington Post) cultural history of America’s most influential, most divisive artistic phenomenon, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning New Yorker writer—“a must-read for anyone interested in television or popular culture”...

Is anyone ever truly lost in the internet age? A moving, original memoir of a young woman reckoning with her parents’ absence, the virus that took them, and what it means to search for meaning in a hyperconnected world. “Brilliantly innovative . . . syncing a narrative of profoundly personal...

This program is read by the author. The critically acclaimed author of In the Wake, "Christina Sharpe is a brilliant thinker who attends unflinchingly to the brutality of our current arrangements . . . and yet always finds a way to beauty and possibility" (Saidiya Hartman). A singular...

From the author of the highly acclaimed heavy metal memoir, Fargo Rock City, comes another hilarious and discerning take on massively popular culture—set in Chuck Klosterman’s den and your own—covering everything from the effect of John Cusack flicks to the crucial role of breakfast cereal...

In Homegrown, cultural critics Bell Hooks and Amalia Mesa-Bains reflect on the innate solidarity between Black and Latino culture. Riffing on everything from home and family to multiculturalism and the mass media, Hooks and Mesa-Bains invite listeners to re-examine and confront the polarizing mainstream discourse about Black-Latino relationships that is too often negative in its emphasis on political splits between people of color. A work of activism through dialogue, Homegrown is a declaration of solidarity that rings true even ten years after its first publication.

Award-winning essayist Tom Bissell explores the highs and lows of the creative process. He takes us from the set of The Big Bang Theory to the first novel of Ernest Hemingway to the final work of David Foster Wallace; from the films of Werner Herzog to the film of Tommy Wiseau to the editorial...

"Kerry Shale's reading delivers lots of information clearly as Harris discusses technological developments that threaten our solitude today. While much of Harris's book is critical of those developments, Shale also captures Harris's humor and occasional indignance." — AudioFile Magazine With a...

Insurrección Cultural explora los distintos panoramas (culturales, ecológicos, naturales) para encontrar un camino a seguir: la construcción de una ecología de la cultura. Jonathan Nossiter se inspira en la viticultura rebelde y en el gesto fraternal de muchos productores de vino natural que hace tiempo vienen generando nuevas propuestas para una mejora de la calidad de vida y de la cultura, artesanos de la tierra, verdaderos artistas que volvieron a retomar el papel de la protesta, la disidencia, últimamente abandonado por los artistas.

One of Kirkus Review's Best Books About Being Black in America "Powerful... Calling for Black women (in and out of the public eye) to be treated with empathy, Blay’s pivotal work will engage all readers, especially fans of Mikki Kendall’s Hood Feminism." —Kirkus (Starred) This program is...