Public Intellectual

Many of the odd social media arguments over the last couple years -- from Scorsese v Marvel to teach Harry Potter instead of Nathaniel Hawthorne -- can be understood as being actually about uncertainty about what art is for. Which is a new development of the age old "what makes art meaningful" conversation. Rita Felski, the author of Hooked: Art and Attachment, speaks to Jessa about some of these recent controversies, why it can be profoundly irritating to be told a film is great, and why we can't solve the problem of art.

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We'll be returning to our regular weekly schedule starting January 11th. Until then, please enjoy this first entry in our series of bonus episodes about the opera with singer Amber Fasquelle. We discuss Don Giovanni, an opera about a murder and rapist, and using art to talk about trauma and tragedy.

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On the darkest day of the year, and with Trent Reznor everywhere with two new scores, it seems an appropriate time to discuss the Nine Inch Nails masterpiece The Downward Spiral. How did someone with actually so few real hits become such an influential artist? Why do people love to take their clothes off to Closer? Will Trent ever go through another velvet phase (please please)?

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Chelsey Weber Smith runs the American Hysteria podcast, so who better to come on to discuss America's various conspiracy theories, cults, and moral panics? Chelsey and Jessa discuss the links between the Satanic Panic and Q, how abuse of authority leads to con men and frauds, how the greatest threat to your child is you, and why Jim Jones was right (for a while). Yes, America is falling apart, but America is always falling apart.

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We were promised great art under the Trump administration. Everyone said it: our suffering would lead to a Renaissance of art, literature, and music. It obviously did not happen. (Well, we got a baby Trump balloon, that was cool.) So what happened? Art critic and editor at Caesura Allison Hewitt Ward discuss the recent trends -- Decolonize, idpol, #resistance, portraits of Trump with a micropenis -- and why none of them led to great art.

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Over the last four years under Trump, we've seen the emergence of a far right with militias, the alt-right, and other weirdo fascists, but we've also seen a push to the revolutionary left. What happens with our polarized kin now that we've got another centrist? Natalie Wynn of Contrapoints joins Jessa to discuss the backlash she experienced for telling people to vote, and why guillotines were trending.

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Talk about guns is now shorthand for a certain kind of American: white uneducated racists. But conversations and action around gun control often hurt those most vulnerable, including those who can't count on the police for their own protection because of their race, class, or past interactions. How do we bring sanity to the conversation around guns, and now that militias are cosplaying civil war, some police are on unofficial strike, and violent crime is increasing, is now the time to get a gun? Jessa speaks with Zach Toman who runs the Gun Penguin youtube channel and owns a gun shop in South Carolina about gun culture.

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It's election week in America, so of course we're going to talk about horror, ghosts, and watching violent death as a way of relieving anxiety. Claire Cronin, author of Blue Light of the Screen, joins Jessa to discuss the body horror of Catholicism and why all these haunting shows are just manifestations of anxiety about real estate.

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Who owns a cultural object? Who benefits from artistic production? Where is the line between looting and preservation? While museums have been thought of as this cultural good, these bright shining sacred institutions of learning and edification, they are also the sight of plunder, erasure, and exploitation. Dan Hicks, author of The Brutish Museums, talks with Jessa about what the hard work of decolonization might actually look like.

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Ladies love a fascist. In Victoria de Grazia's new book The Perfect Fascist, she tells the story of Lilliana Weinman -- a beautiful Jewish heiress, attracting love and devotion in opera houses around Europe -- and Attilio Teruzzi, head of the blackshirts in Mussolini's Italy. Their love story, and the way it falls apart, resonates with what drives men to fascist groups today, the political misdeeds of women, and why instead of starting a war you should maybe just go to the opera instead.

Support this podcast: http://patreon.com/publicintellectual

http://jessacrispin.com