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.
An attempt to triangulate politicization, professionalization, and publication by examining several periods in the history of criticism. The episode begins with Joe Locke describing an overt turn towards social justice in his music following police murder of George Floyd, followed by a discussion of the misperception of “Professing Criticism” as a call to depoliticize [7:00]. An epilogue to “The Chicago Fight” [17:00] and humanist criticism [24:00]. Discussion of the implicit politics of the paracademy [51:00], its emergence in response to conglomeration [56:00], and the reemergence of patronage [68:00] precede profile of Las Vegas Review of Books [81:00] and epilogue at University of Puerto Rico [100:30].
Cast:
John Guillory is the Julius Silver Professor of English Emeritus at New York University and the author of Professing Criticism (U. Chicago, 2022).
John Hay is Associate Professor of English at University of Nevada, Las Vegas and founding editor of Las Vegas Review of Books.
Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera is Professor of the Humanities at University of Puerto Rico, as well as author of Decolonizing American Spanish (U Pittsburgh P, 2022), After American Studies (Routledge, 2018), and “Where The Humanities Are Not In Crisis”
Katie Kadue is Assistant Professor of English at SUNY Binghamton and the author of “The End of The Star System.”
Joe Locke is a professional vibraphonist, composer, and bandleader with hundreds of recording credits and commissions across a range of musical styles. His 2023 album, Makram (Circle 9 Records), is the soundtrack to “Criticism LTD.”
Tom Lutz is a Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at University of California, Riverside, as well as the publisher and founding editor-in-chief of Los Angeles Review of Books. He launched The LARB Publishing Workshop.
Edward Nik-Khah is Professor of Economics at Roanoke College and the co-author (with Philip Mirowski) of The Knowledge We Have Lost In Information (Oxford UP, 2017).
Bruce Robbins is Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, and the author of Politics & Criticism (Stanford UP, 2022), The Beneficiary (Duke UP, 2017), Upward Mobility & The Common Good (Princeton UP, 2007), and Secular Vocations (Verso, 1993)
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).
