Transcripts are now created by Substack. You can access them by clicking the transcript icon just above this message.
The quality remains inconsistent. This is the BETA version of Substack transcription and promises to improve over time.
The prime advantage to the Substack transcripts over our previous provider is that they are synchronized with episode audio, so you can check the text against the recording simply by clicking on the play button to the left of each paragraph. I considered this feature imperative given that I have not been able to find time to edit transcriptions before they post.
My warning from previous posts remains applicable…
These transcriptions are computer-generated. Transcription software has been known to make basic errors, even confusing homonymic antonyms, like adequate and inadequate. While I hope such errors are rare, if you are going to quote from an episode of The American Vandal (which I encourage!), please review the associated recording (or have a colleague do so), as that is the proper source of record.
What is the relationship between literary criticism and media studies? How has criticism adapted to the digital revolution? These questions are considered by examining the origins of the blogosphere [5:00], its recent reemergence [17:00], the specific case of “Brittle Paper” [29:00], and strategies of adaptation within the profession [46:00]. The episode then turns to two examinations of multimedia parasitical criticism: Jacque Derrida’s “Limited Inc.” [60:00] and Ryan Ruby’s “Context Collapse” [71:00].
Cast:
Ainehi Edoro is Assistant Professor of African Cultural Studies and English at University of Wisconsin – Madison, as well as the founder and editor-in-chief of Brittle Paper.
John Guillory is the Julius Silver Professor of English Emeritus at New York University and the author of Professing Criticism (U. Chicago, 2022).
Sheri-Marie Harrison is Associate Professor of English and Associate Dean of Graduate Studies & Faculty Success at University of Missouri. She just published a co-edited collection, Jesmyn Ward: New Critical Essays (Edinburgh UP, 2023), and blogs about her reading lists at All Things Sheri.
Howard Rambsy is Distinguished Research Professor of Literature at Souther Illinois University – Edwardsville, the author of Bad Men: Creative Touchstones of Black Writers (U Virginia, 2020), and executive producer of Remarkable Receptions. He blogs about poetry, digital humanities, and much more at Cultural Front.
Ryan Ruby is a freelance writer and member of the Berlin Writers’ Workshop, as well as winner of the 2023 Robert B. Silvers Prize for Literary Criticism and author of “A Golden Age?”, a lecture hosted by Vinduet magazine in Oslo on March 7, 2023. His epic of the poet-critic, Context Collapse, is forthcoming from Seven Stories Press.
Matt Seybold is Associate Professor of American Literature & Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College, resident scholar at the Center For Mark Twain Studies, and executive producer of The American Vandal Podcast. He’s also co-editor (with Michelle Chihara) of The Routledge Companion to Literature & Economics (2018).
