Best Cinema Subculture Podcasts (2024)

1
Swapnil Rai, "Networked Bollywood: How Star Power Globalized Hindi Cinema" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 52:38

5d ago52:38

52:38

Swapnil Rai’s book Networked Bollywood: How Star Power Globalized Hindi Cinema (Cambridge UP, 2024) brilliantly navigates the intricate landscapes of stardom, shedding light on its diverse meanings amidst the ever-evolving new media industries and the demands of a globally interconnected audiences. With a keen focus on the global south, she masterf…

1
Barbara Klinger, "Immortal Films: 'Casablanca' and the Afterlife of a Hollywood Classic" (U California Press, 2022) 1:04:53

7d ago1:04:53

1:04:53

Casablanca is one of the most celebrated Hollywood films of all time, its iconic romance enshrined in collective memory across generations. Drawing from archival materials, industry trade journals, and cultural commentary, in Immortal Films: "Casablanca" and the Afterlife of a Hollywood Classic (University of California Press, 2022), Dr. Barbara Kl…

1
Once more with feeling - 6x1-2 Bargaining (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) 51:19

10d ago51:19

51:19

The only way Edwina could convince her husband to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer was to do a podcast about it. This week, we delve into the double-episode season six opener, Bargaining pt1&2.By Nerd Subculture

1
Ann Powers, "Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell" (Dey Street Books, 2024) 51:46

10d ago51:46

51:46

For decades, Joni Mitchell's life and music have enraptured listeners. One of the most celebrated artists of her generation, Mitchell has inspired countless musicians--from peers like James Taylor, to inheritors like Prince and Brandi Carlile--and authors, who have dissected her music and her life in their writing. At the same time, Mitchell has al…

1
Hank Willenbrink, "Performing for the Don: Theatres of Faith in the Age of Trump" (Routledge, 2024) 1:30:26

11d ago1:30:26

1:30:26

From his overwhelming embrace by evangelicals and other people of faith to his championing of policies and conservative judicial candidates long sought by right-wing Christians, Donald Trump’s candidacy, campaign, and presidency were empowered by believers of many stripes who employed different methods of rationalizing or Christianizing Trump and h…

1
Christopher T. Conner and David R. Dickens, "Electronic Dance Music: From Deviant Subculture to Culture Industry" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023) 54:20

11d ago54:20

54:20

Electronic Dance Music: From Deviant Subculture to Culture Industry (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023) explores the subculture’s emergence as a deviant subculture. This text analyzes how industry professionals, fans, and public officials helped usher in a new age of EDM, arguing that while the defining features of the subculture made it attractive, they …

1
Jennifer S. Clark, "Producing Feminism: Television Work in the Age of Women's Liberation" (U California Press, 2024) 48:14

13d ago48:14

48:14

How have women resisted sexism in TV? In Producing Feminism: Television Work in the Age of Women’s Liberation (U California Press, 2024), Jennifer S. Clark, an Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, explores the people, organisations, TV shows and audiences who all shaped women in and on television during the …

1
Harry R. McCarthy, "Boy Actors in Early Modern England" (Cambridge UP, 2022) 44:27

17d ago44:27

44:27

Boy Actors in Early Modern England: Skill and Stagecraft in the Theatre (Cambridge University Press, 2022) by Dr. Harry McCarthy provides a new approach to the study of early modern boy actors, offering a historical re-appraisal of these performers' physical skills in order to reassess their wide-reaching contribution to early modern theatrical cul…

1
Jared Stearns, "Pure: The Sexual Revolutions of Marilyn Chambers" (Headpress, 2024) 1:04:58

20d ago1:04:58

1:04:58

In Pure: The Sexual Revolutions of Marilyn Chambers (Headpress, 2024), Jared Stearns tells the untold story of the world's most famous X-rated star, who rose to fame as the face of Ivory Snow and the star of Behind the Green Door but struggled to find her true self in a world of sex, scandal, and shattered dreams. Marilyn Chambers was the embodimen…

1
Laura Davis-Chanin and Liz Lamere, "Infinite Dreams: The Life of Alan Vega" (Backbeat Books, 2024) 59:56

23d ago59:56

59:56

Infinite Dreams: The Life of Alan Vega (Backbeat, 2024) by Laura Davis-Chanin and Liz Lamere is the first biography on the life of Alan Vega, best known as the co-founder of the punk duo Suicide. In their exhaustive biography Davis-Chanin and Vega's wife of 30 years, Liz Lamere, start with Vega's early life and attempts at astrophysics in college, …

1
Timothy P. Storhoff, "Harmony and Normalization: US-Cuban Musical Diplomacy" (UP of Mississippi, 2020) 59:13

25d ago59:13

59:13

Harmony and Normalization: US-Cuban Musical Diplomacy (University Press of Mississippi, 2020) explores the channels of musical exchange between Cuba and the United States during the eight-year presidency of Barack Obama, who eased the musical embargo of the island and restored relations with Cuba. Musical exchanges during this period act as a lens …

1
The Lost Boys 1987 You’re Watching That AGAIN! 1:01:30

30d ago1:01:30

1:01:30

You’re Watching That AGAIN! is a movie Podcast from Nerd Subculture where Edwina and Jarrod discuss the movies they have re-watched too many times and the emotional connections we have to them. This week, we discuss the 80’s classic that made vampires cool again, The Lost Boys.By Nerd Subculture

1
Matthew D. Morrison, "Blacksound: Making Race and Popular Music in the United States" (U California Press, 2024) 1:17:56

29d ago1:17:56

1:17:56

Blacksound: Making Race and Popular Music in the United States (U California Press, 2024) explores the sonic history of blackface minstrelsy and the racial foundations of American musical culture from the early 1800s through the turn of the twentieth century. With this namesake book, Matthew D. Morrison develops the concept of "Blacksound" to uncov…

1
Tara López, "Chuco Punk: Sonic Insurgency in El Paso" (U Texas Press, 2024) 51:21

1M ago51:21

51:21

Tara López's Chuco Punk: Sonic Insurgency in El Paso (University of Texas Press, 2024), is an immersive study of the influential and predominantly Chicanx punk rock scene in El Paso, Texas. Punk rock is known for its daring subversion, and so is the West Texas city of El Paso. In Chuco Punk, Tara López dives into the rebellious sonic history of the…

1
Ramón Espejo, "The Catalonian Journey of American Drama 1909-2000: From Jimmy Valentine to The Vagina Monologues" (Legenda, 2024) 31:26

1M ago31:26

31:26

Ramón Espejo's book The Catalonian Journey of American Drama 1909-2000: From Jimmy Valentine to The Vagina Monologues (Legenda, 2024) delves into the fascinating journey of American drama in Catalonia, exploring how the theatrical output of a world superpower has impacted (and transformed) the stages of an allegedly minor actor in the cultural scen…

1
Robert Phillip Kolker and Marsha Gordon, "Film, Form, and Culture" (Routledge, 2024) 58:41

1M ago58:41

58:41

This fifth edition of Film, Form, and Culture (Routledge, 2024) offers a lively introduction to both the formal and cultural aspects of film. With extensive analysis of films past and present, this textbook explores how films are constructed from part to whole: from the smallest unit of the shot to the way shots are edited together to create narrat…

1
Chris Haufe, "Do the Humanities Create Knowledge?" (Cambridge UP, 2023) 1:05:18

1M ago1:05:18

1:05:18

There is in certain circles a widely held belief that the only proper kind of knowledge is scientific knowledge. This belief often runs parallel to the notion that legitimate knowledge is obtained when a scientist follows a rigorous investigative procedure called the 'scientific method'. In Do the Humanities Create Knowledge? (Cambridge UP, 2023), …

1
Bodie A. Ashton, "The Pet Shop Boys and the Political: Queerness, Culture, Identity, and Society" (Bloomsbury, 2024) 59:16

1M ago59:16

59:16

In The Pet Shop Boys and the Political: Queerness, Culture, Identity, and Society (Bloomsbury, 2024), editor Bodie Ashton compiles twelve essays exploring the impact of Pet Shop Boys across the past four decades. The Pet Shop Boys came of age at a time of deep socio-political tension. From the rise of sexual politics and awareness to Thatcherite ne…

1
Nicholas Taylor-Collins, "Shakespeare, Memory, and Modern Irish Literature" (Manchester UP, 2022) 1:01:15

1M ago1:01:15

1:01:15

In this interview, Dr. Nicholas Taylor-Collins discusses his most recent book Shakespeare, Memory, and Modern Irish Literature (Manchester UP, 2022). Shakespeare, Memory, and Modern Irish Literature explores the intertextual connections between early modern English and modern Irish literature. Characterizing the relationship as 'dismemorial', the b…

1
Nicholas Underwood, "Yiddish Paris: Staging Nation and Community in Interwar France" (Indiana UP, 2022) 1:04:06

2M ago1:04:06

1:04:06

Nick Underwood's Yiddish Paris: Staging Nation and Community in Interwar Paris (Indiana University Press, 2022) is a captivating study of the culture and politics of the vibrant community of Yiddish-speaking immigrants to Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. Making their way to the French capital from various sites in Eastern Europe, members of this Jewis…

1
Rob Drew, "Unspooled: How the Cassette Made Music Shareable" (Duke UP, 2023) 44:34

2M ago44:34

44:34

Well into the new millennium, the analog cassette tape continues to claw its way back from obsolescence. New cassette labels emerge from hipster enclaves while the cassette’s likeness pops up on T-shirts, coffee mugs, belt buckles, and cell phone cases. In Unspooled: How the Cassette Made Music Shareable (Duke University Press, 2024), Dr. Rob Drew …

1
Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas 1998 You’re Watching That AGAIN! 54:25

2M ago54:25

54:25

You’re Watching That AGAIN! is a movie Podcast from Nerd Subculture where Edwina and Jarrod discuss the movies they have re-watched too many times and the emotional connections we have to them. This week, we discuss the mind-bending drug-fueled fever dream of a movie Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas.By Nerd Subculture

1
James A. Cosby, "Rock Music, Authority and Western Culture, 1964-1980" (McFarland, 2024) 42:56

2M ago42:56

42:56

The history of rock and roll music can be seen in a long arc of Western civilization's struggle for both greater individual expression and societal stability. In the 1960s, the West's relationship with authority ruptured, in part due to the rock revolution. The lessons and implications of this era have yet to be fully grasped. James A. Cosby's book…

1
Ambereen Dadabhoy, "Shakespeare Through Islamic Worlds" (Routledge, 2023) 1:05:20

2M ago1:05:20

1:05:20

Shakespeare through Islamic Worlds (Routledge, 2024) investigates the peculiar absence of Islam and Muslims from Shakespeare’s canon. While many of Shakespeare’s plays were set in the Mediterranean, a geography occupied by Muslim empires and cultures, his work eschews direct engagement with the religion and its people. This erasure is striking give…

1
Douglas L. Reside, "Fixing the Musical: How Technologies Shaped the Broadway Repertory" (Oxford UP, 2023) 56:24

2M ago56:24

56:24

Thousands of shows have opened on Broadway. Why do we remember some and not others? The musical theatre repertory is not composed of titles popular in the theatre but by those with successful cast recordings, movie versions, or even illegal bootlegs on YouTube. The shows audiences know, and the texts and music they expect to hear when they attend a…

1
Julia A. Cassiday, "Russian Style: Performing Gender, Power, and Putinism" (U Wisconsin Press, 2023) 49:12

2M ago49:12

49:12

Russian Style: Performing Gender, Power, and Putinism (University of Wisconsin Press, 2023) provides a critical and nuanced analysis of the relationship between popular culture and politics in Russia during Vladimir Putin’s first two decades in power. It traces how the performance of Russian citizenship has been remolded according to a neoconservat…

1
Alyxandra Vesey, "Extending Play: The Feminization of Collaborative Music Merchandise in the Early Twenty-First Century" (Oxford UP, 2023) 1:25:09

2M ago1:25:09

1:25:09

Despite the hypervisibility of a constellation of female pop stars, the music business is structured around gender inequality. As a result, women in the music industry often seize on self-branding opportunities in fashion, cosmetics, food, and technology for the purposes of professional longevity. Extending Play: The Feminization of Collaborative M…

1
Julia Havas, "Woman Up: Invoking Feminism in Quality Television" (Wayne State UP, 2022) 1:13:21

2M ago1:13:21

1:13:21

While American television has long relied on a strategic foregrounding of feminist politics to promote certain programming's cultural value, Woman Up: Invoking Feminism in Quality Television (Wayne State University Press, 2022) by Dr. Julia Havas is the first sustained critical analysis of the twenty-first-century resurgence of this tradition. In W…

1
Kristine Ohkubo and Kanariya Eiraku, "Talking About Rakugo 1: The Japanese Art of Storytelling" (2022) 44:37

2M ago44:37

44:37

Rakugo is a live performance art that has penetrated the borders of Japan and continues to gain popularity overseas. The rakugo stage once dominated by Japanese raconteurs now features foreign storytellers, as well as Japanese performers, both amateur and professional, who endeavor to entertain us in English. The only requirements for rakugo storyt…

1
Once more with feeling - 5x22The Gift (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) 1:11:26

2M ago1:11:26

1:11:26

The only way Edwina could convince her husband to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer was to do a podcast about it. This week, we delve into the season finale and 100th episode, The Gift.By Nerd Subculture

1
Sydney Stern, "The Brothers Mankiewicz: Hope, Heartbreak, and Hollywood Classics" (U Mississippi Press, 2019) 1:14:59

2M ago1:14:59

1:14:59

Herman J. (1897–1953) and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909–1993) wrote, produced, and directed over 150 pictures. With Orson Welles, Herman wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane and shared the picture’s only Academy Award. Joe earned the second pair of his four Oscars for writing and directing All About Eve, which also won Best Picture. In The Brothers M…

1
Patrick Humphries, "Cleopatra and the Undoing of Hollywood: How One Film Almost Sunk the Studios" (History Press, 2023) 53:35

2M ago53:35

53:35

The astonishing behind-the-scenes story of the 1963 film Cleopatra and how it changed the face of Hollywood makes it one of the most fabled films of all time. Starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, the film’s making soon became a cautionary tale, for the lavish extravagance of production on Cleopatra all but bankrupted 20th Century Fox and a…

1
Kristi Irene McKim, "Rushmore" (British Film Institute, 2023) 1:23:56

2M ago1:23:56

1:23:56

Earning critical acclaim and commercial success upon its 1998 release, Rushmore-the sophomore film of American auteur Wes Anderson-quickly gained the status of a cult classic. A melancholic coming-of-age story wrapped in comedy drama, Rushmore focuses on the efforts of Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman)-a brazen and precocious fifteen-year-old-to find…

1
Katie Gee Salisbury, "Not Your China Doll: The Wild and Shimmering Life of Anna May Wong" (Dutton, 2024) 46:21

2M ago46:21

46:21

In 2022, the U.S. Mint released the first batch of its American Women Quarters series, celebrating the achievements of U.S. women throughout its history. The first set of five included Maya Angelou, Sally Ride…and Anna May Wong, the first Asian-American to ever appear on U.S. currency. Katie Gee Salisbury takes on Anna May Wong’s life in her book N…

1
Justin O’Connor, "Culture is Not an Industry: Reclaiming Art and Culture for the Common" (Manchester UP, 2024) 59:46

2M ago59:46

59:46

According to Dr. Justin O’Connor, culture is at the heart of what it means to be human. But twenty-five years ago, the British government rebranded art and culture as 'creative industries', valued for their economic contribution, and set out to launch the UK as the creative workshop of a globalised world. Where does that leave art and culture now? …

1
Victoria Sparey, "Shakespeare's Adolescents: Age, Gender and the Body in Shakespearean Performance and Early Modern Culture" (Manchester UP, 2024) 57:34

2M ago57:34

57:34

Shakespeare's Adolescents: Age, Gender and the Body in Shakespearean Performance and Early Modern Culture (Manchester UP, 2024) by Dr. Victoria Sparey examines the varied representation of adolescent characters in Shakespeare's plays. Using early modern medical knowledge and an understanding of contemporary theatrical practices, the book unpacks co…

1
Kristin M. Franseen, "Imagining Musical Pasts: The Queer Literary Musicology of Vernon Lee, Rosa Newmarch, and Edward Prime-Stevenson" (Clemson UP, 2023) 1:01:36

2M ago1:01:36

1:01:36

Imagining Musical Pasts: the Queer Literary Musicology of Vernon Lee, Rosa Newmarch, and Edward Prime-Stevenson (Clemson University Press, 2023) by Kristin M. Franseen explores the complicated archive of sources, interpretations, and people present in queer writings on opera and symphonic music from ca. 1880 to 1935. It focuses primarily on the wor…

1
Dana Gorzelany-Mostak, "Tracks on the Trail: Popular Music, Race, and the US Presidency" (U Michigan Press, 2023) 50:38

2M ago50:38

50:38

From Bill Clinton playing his saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show to Barack Obama referencing Jay-Z's song "Dirt Off Your Shoulder," politicians have used music not only to construct their personal presidential identities but to create the broader identity of the American presidency. Through music, candidates can appear relatable, show cultural comp…

1
Once more with feeling - 5x21 The Weight Of The World (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) 41:35

2M ago41:35

41:35

The only way Edwina could convince her husband to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer was to do a podcast about it. This week, we discuss the penultimate episode of season 5, The Weight Of The World.By Nerd Subculture

1
Alexander Greenhough, "Albert Brooks: Interviews" (UP of Mississippi, 2024) 48:40

2M ago48:40

48:40

Albert Brooks: Interviews (UP of Mississippi, 2024) brings together fourteen profiles of and conversations with Brooks (b. 1947), in which he contemplates, expounds upon, and hilariously jokes about the connections between his show business upbringing, an ambivalence about the film industry, the nature of fame and success, and the meaning and purpo…

1
Eve Golden, "Strictly Dynamite: The Sensational Life of Lupe Velez" (UP of Kentucky, 2023) 35:11

3M ago35:11

35:11

Before Salma Hayek, Eva Longoria, and Penelope Cruz, there was Lupe Velez―one of the first Latin-American stars to sweep past the xenophobia of old Hollywood and pave the way for future icons from around the world. Her career began in the silent era, when her beauty was enough to make it onto the silver screen, but with the rise of talkies, Velez c…

1
Miriam Piilonen, "Theorizing Music Evolution: Darwin, Spencer, and the Limits of the Human" (Oxford UP, 2024) 1:17:57

3M ago1:17:57

1:17:57

What did historical evolutionists such as Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer have to say about music? What role did music play in their evolutionary theories? What were the values and limits of these evolutionist turns of thought, and in what ways have they endured in present-day music research? Theorizing Music Evolution: Darwin, Spencer, and the …

1
Sharrona Pearl, "Mask" (Bloombury, 2024) 30:49

3M ago30:49

30:49

From the theatre mask and masquerade to the masked criminal and the rise of facial recognition software, masks have long performed as an instrument for the protection and concealment of identity. Even as they conceal and protect, masks – as faces – are an extension of the self. At the same time, they are a part of material culture: what are masks m…

1
Ellie Tomsett, "Stand-up Comedy and Contemporary Feminisms: Sexism, Stereotypes and Structural Inequalities" (Bloomsbury, 2023) 38:22

3M ago38:22

38:22

How is comedy hostile to women? In Stand-up Comedy and Contemporary Feminisms: Sexism, Stereotypes and Structural Inequalities (Bloomsbury, 2023), Ellie Tomsett, a Senior Lecturer in media and film at Birmingham City University, explores the reality of a comedy industry that, despite many changes, still has a sexism problem. The book draws on a hug…

1
Leah Broad, "Quartet: How Four Women Changed the Musical World" (Faber & Faber, 2023) 57:21

3M ago57:21

57:21

This is a story of four composers whose careers, lives and loves as women working in 20th century Britain have since been largely forgotten. Dr Leah Broad’s 2023 debut Quartet: How Four Women Changed the Musical World (Faber & Faber, 2023), reveals the life and music of some of Britain’s most exciting 20th-century composers. A musicologist who grav…

1
Jane M. Ferguson, "Silver Screens and Golden Dreams: A Social History of Burmese Cinema" (U Hawaii Press, 2024) 48:14

3M ago48:14

48:14

Within the social sciences and the humanities, international research in Burma/Myanmar studies tends to lean toward political science and Buddhist studies, or what can be characterized as the “soldiers or monks” approach. The political situation within the country has restricted the access that foreign researchers have had to the country. It has al…

1
Daniel de Visé, "The Blues Brothers: An Epic Friendship, the Rise of Improv, and the Making of an American Film Classic" (Grove Atlantic, 2024) 58:35

3M ago58:35

58:35

The Blues Brothers: An Epic Friendship, the Rise of Improv, and the Making of an American Film Classic (Grove Atlantic, 2024) tells the story of the epic friendship between John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, the golden era of improv, and the making of a comedic film classic that helped shape our popular culture. “They’re not going to catch us,” Dan Aykr…

1
Edward Dusinberre, "Distant Melodies: Music in Search of Home" (U Chicago Press, 2022) 56:11

3M ago56:11

56:11

The first violinist of the Takács Quartet weaves scholarship on Edward Elgar, Antonin Dvořák, Bela Bartók and Benjamin Britten with a deeply personal evocation of belonging, national identity and the private life of a string quartet. Edward Dusinberre’s Distant Melodies: Music in Search of Home (Faber, The University of Chicago Press 2022) alternat…

1
Richard Beaudoin, "Sounds As They Are: The unwritten music in classical recordings" (Oxford UP, 2024) 1:24:42

3M ago1:24:42

1:24:42

In a recording, what sounds count as music? Sounds made by a musician's body--including inhales, finger taps, and grunts--have for decades been dismissed as extraneous noises. In Sounds As They Are: The unwritten music in classical recordings (Oxford UP, 2024), author Richard Beaudoin pioneers a field of inquiry into non-notated sounds in recording…

1
Once more with feeling - 5x20 Spiral (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) 27:32

3M ago27:32

27:32

The only way Edwina could convince her husband to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer was to do a podcast about it. This week, we discuss Spiral and how maybe season 5 could have been better without the addition of the Knights of Byzantium.By Nerd Subculture

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