This is the first part of Los Altos Institute's seven-part podcast documentary, which uses the first British comedy in the written record, the Second Shepherd's Pageant (1420) to examine the rise of the modern world and the profound cultural, political and economic changes the world would undergo. The Pageant is an extraordinarily observant and prescient work, both embodying and remarking on the sweeping changes that would inaugurate capitalist modernity. The podcast is a series of conversations between Los Altos directors about the play.

In the second part, part, we look at the greater Hanseatic World of Northern Europe and the relationship between its economy, culture and the rise of the Calvinist movement. 

This is the first part of Los Altos Institute's seven-part podcast documentary, which uses the first British comedy in the written record, the Second Shepherd's Pageant (1420) to examine the rise of the modern world and the profound cultural, political and economic changes the world would undergo. The Pageant is an extraordinarily observant and prescient work, both embodying and remarking on the sweeping changes that would inaugurate capitalist modernity. The podcast is a series of conversations between Los Altos directors about the play.

Focusing on the Christmas special, the final episode thinks about how to situate the whole series as a Christian text. 

In this analysis of the election episode, Jim Lahey is a Drunk Bastard, we look at how populist campaigns are different from progressive campaigns and examine different kinds of populism, democratic versus authoritarian, left versus right, by seeing how all this shakes down in Sunnyvale's only known election.

In Where the Fuck is Randy's Barbecue, Ricky is presented as a role model for a junior achievers' group. Again leaning on examples from and similarities to Black America, the lecture discusses the paradox of the role model figure in a community of oppressed people. 

This is a longer class and more heavily edited than usual because it includes a pre-class discussion that the instructor entered the middle of at the start of the hour that had to be relocated and shorn of its most controversial/offensive material. Similarly, more material is redacted than usual as it includes biographical information about course participants and in personal anecdotes by participants and the instructor. Why so many problems and such a long class? Because Trailer Park Boys and LAI's students have important and smart things to say about race and identity. 

This course examines ideas of space, place and neighbourliness in Trailer Park Boys, including an abbreviated explanation of the rise of the concept of the neighbour in early modernity and an exploration of how the nature of trailer park space circumscribes the lives of its residents.

This episode features some background information on theories of addiction, as well as some great anecdotes. The main body of the episode is a look at the ambivalence and complexity with which addiction and substance use are handled in the show.

Like other classes, this follows the format of a 30-minute lecture, followed by a somewhat redacted (and consequently disjointed) question and answer session. We revisit Calvinism, via the work of Max Weber, in explaining why models of fated salvation make people work harder than models of earned salvation. We then use Jean Baudrillard's idea of hyperreality to illustrate Ray's epitomization of the Calvinist ethic through insurance fraud. In the Q&A, there is an informative discussion that touches a fair bit on CS Lewis and Mormonism.

Once again, there is a lecture, followed by a wide-ranging discussion about working class social conservatism and consequent views about marriage, homosexuality and trans identities.