Critics at Large | The New Yorker

By The New Yorker

Critics at Large is a weekly culture podcast from The New Yorker. Every Thursday, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss current obsessions, classic texts they’... more

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Number 1: Critics’ Cult Classics: Emily Nussbaum on “Slings & Arrows”
During her tenure as The New Yorker’s television critic, Emily Nussbaum famously railed against ranking the year’s best shows; she once wrote a piece entitled “I Hate Top Ten Lists.” But naming her favorite series of all time is an easier proposition, and the honor goes to a little-known Canadian production from the early two-thousands that dramatized the colorful characters and commercial struggles of a fictional Shakespearean theatre festival. In the final episode of this summer’s Critics at Large interview series, Alex Schwartz talks with Nussbaum about her love of “Slings & Arrows,” which pioneered a complex balance of comedy and drama that would eventually become a hallmark of prestige television. Today, Hollywood showrunners including David Simon, the creator of “The Wire,” sing its praises—and yet it remains largely overlooked by audiences. Nussbaum, who’s lately been writing as the magazine’s theatre critic, is on a mission to change that. “The history of TV is the confusion between whether something is good and whether it’s popular and commercial,” Nussbaum says. “ ‘Slings & Arrows’ is an example of a show that is the best show—regardless of how many people watch it.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “Cue the Sun,” by Emily Nussbaum“Slings and Arrows” (2003-2006)“Hamlet,” by William Shakespeare“Macbeth,” by William Shakespeare“King Lear,” by William Shakespeare“30 Rock” (2006-13)“Orange Is the New Black” (2013-19)“Call My Agent!” (2015-19)“The Studio” (2025—)“Next to Normal” (2025)“Succession” (2018-2023) New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
August 20, 202641min
Number 2: What is Gen Z Afraid Of?
In May, two low-budget movies from début filmmakers opened in theatres and quickly made box-office history. “Obsession” and “Backrooms,” which together have grossed nearly a billion dollars, defied conventional industry wisdom and inaugurated the burgeoning genre of “Gen Z horror.” On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz are joined by New Yorker culture editor and horror enthusiast Alex Barasch to discuss this new canon, beginning with the most recent entry, Alex Ullom’s “It Ends.” Like Curry Barker and Kane Parsons—the directors of “Obsession” and “Backrooms,” respectively—Ullom is a twentysomething who honed his craft on YouTube. This content pipeline has already become a model for Hollywood executives who are scrambling to cash in on the phenomenon. But these films’ sensitivity to the predicaments of young viewers, who grew up online and came of age during the pandemic, may be the real key to their commercial success. “It’s people responding to another member of their generation speaking directly to them,” Barasch says. “I hope that that is what is sought and funded and rewarded in this new era.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “Why Horror Still Haunts Us” (The New Yorker) “Obsession” (2026) “Backrooms” (2026) “It Ends” (2026) “The Twenty-Six-Year-Old Behind ‘Obsession,’ a Terrifying Tale of a Crush Gone Awry,” by Alex Barasch (The New Yorker) “No Exit,” by Jean-Paul Sartre “Weapons” (2025) “Portal” (2007) “Iron Lung” (2026) New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
August 27, 202655min
Number 3: The Irony and the Ecstasy of Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead’s ascent in the literary world has seemed, like much of what he does, impressively effortless. Though he’s best known for “The Underground Railroad” and “The Nickel Boys”—both of which were awarded Pulitzer Prizes—his œuvre also includes a mystery set amid rival schools of elevator inspectors, a zombie novel, and an autobiographical coming-of-age story. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz survey Whitehead’s wide-ranging body of work. The hosts are joined by their fellow staff writer Julian Lucas, who recently profiled Whitehead for The New Yorker. Together, they discuss three central works: “The Underground Railroad,” which catapulted its author from literary darling to mainstream celebrity; “Sag Harbor,” which fictionalizes, barely, Whitehead’s summers in the Hamptons and the family dramas that played out there; and “Harlem Shuffle,” the first installment of the crime trilogy that concluded this month, with the publication of “Cool Machine.” On the page, Whitehead is a true Gen X ironist, transmitting heavy histories and themes with levity. Despite the occasional darkness of his subject matter, he’s also one of our funniest novelists. “He has this way of, almost like a standup comedian, drawing you into this playful patter,” Lucas says. “Then your defenses go down, and that’s when he hits you with something that grabs you emotionally, or that pulls you into a story.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “The Elusive Promise of the First Person” (The New Yorker) “The Nickel Boys,” by Colson Whitehead “Colson Whitehead’s Big Score,” by Julian Lucas (The New Yorker) “The Colossus of New York,” by Colson Whitehead “The Underground Railroad,” by Colson Whitehead “Sag Harbor,” by Colson Whitehead “Harlem Shuffle,” by Colson Whitehead “Cool Machine,” by Colson Whitehead “Why Bother?” by Jonathan Franzen (Harper’s) “The Odyssey” (2026) “Who Owns the Odyssey?” (The New Yorker) “Don’t Use A.I. to Do This,” by Colson Whitehead (The New York Times) “John Henry Days,” by Colson Whitehead New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
July 30, 202651min
Number 4: Critics’ Cult Classics: Hanif Abdurraqib on Camp Lo’s “Uptown Saturday Night”
When it dropped in January of 1997, Camp Lo’s “Uptown Saturday Night” thrilled some listeners and confounded others. On the first in a series of Critics at Large interview episodes devoted to resurfacing beloved cult classics, Vinson Cunningham talks with Hanif Abdurraqib, a contributing writer for The New Yorker and a diehard fan of the Camp Lo project. Abdurraqib describes “Uptown Saturday Night,” which leaned on Blaxploitation tropes to paint a strikingly cinematic picture of New York City, as “essentially a heist film” unto itself. Together, they discuss the album’s lukewarm reception at the time, and why its creative approach to storytelling seemed to land on deaf ears. One explanation is that the hip-hop marketplace of the era was increasingly demanding that musicians pick a lane: underground or mainstream, socially conscious or unapologetically opulent. “ ‘Uptown Saturday Night’ got lost in that because it didn’t really have a foothold in either world,” Abdurraqib says. “At a time when a lot of these guys with underground roots were bending to the hyper-commercialization of hip-hop, Camp Lo never changed who they were.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: Camp Lo’s “Uptown Saturday Night” Fugees’ “The Score” “Uptown Saturday Night” (1974) “Midnight Express” (1978) “The Black Connection” (1974)Dynasty’s “Adventures in the Land of Music” Elliott Wilson’s review of “Uptown Saturday Night” (The Source) Slum Village’s “Fan-Tas-Tic (Vol. 1)” Puff Daddy’s “No Way Out” Pete Rock and Camp Lo’s “80 Blocks from Tiffany’s” Camp Lo’s “Black Hollywood” Jay-Z’s “American Gangster” Wyclef Jean’s “The Carnival” New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
August 06, 202647min
Number 5: Critics’ Cult Classics: Hannah Goldfield on the Food World’s Secret Tastemakers
In the second in a series of Critics at Large interview episodes devoted to the topic of cult classics, Naomi Fry talks with the New Yorker staff writer Hannah Goldfield about how that designation applies in the culinary realm. The two discuss specialty ingredients that appear on menus for only the briefest of moments, out-of-print cookbooks that go for hundreds of dollars on eBay, and once niche restaurants that have blown up in the TikTok era. Then, Goldfield makes her case for the particular staying power of Judy Rodgers’s “Zuni Café Cookbook,” which has influenced countless chefs and food writers—including Samin Nosrat, whose “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat” immediately soared to the top of best-seller lists upon its release, in 2017. “The Zuni Café Cookbook,” though less accessible, has attracted such illustrious devotees for a reason. “It’s text-heavy. It’s huge in size. It’s a bit intimidating at first,” Goldfield says. “But if you are interested in cooking—or if you have a curiosity about it, even—it’s an incredible resource.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “Heartburn,” by Nora Ephron “The Joy of Cooking,” by Irma S. Rombauer “Cooking with Love,” by Ruth Sirkis “The Surprising Endurance of Martha Stewart’s ‘Entertaining,’ ” by Hannah Goldfield (The New Yorker) “Entertaining,” by Martha Stewart “The Zuni Café Cookbook,” by Judy Rodgers “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat,” by Samin Nosrat New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
August 13, 202640min