The American Vandal

A sometimes uncanny Halloween week exploration of the EdTech griftopia. Who's monetizing our data? How is EdTech being used to bust unions [8:00]? How does EdTech reveal the interdependence of teaching and research, and the horror of their unbundling [36:00]? How does being a union member effect literary studies research [61:00]? Is AI the end of literary criticism [81:00]? Cast (in order of appearance): Annie McClanahan, Sarah Brouillette, Matt Seybold, Bryan Alexander, Brian Deyo, Louise McCune, Max Chapnick, Lawrence Lorraine Mullen, Francesca Colonese, Ted Underwood Soundtrack: Joe Locke's "Makram" For episode bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/Unbundling, or subscribe to our newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.SubStack.com, where you will also receive episode transcripts.

An appropriately rangy discussion of the podcast medium and its debts to existing print and audio forms. The origin story of The American Vandal Podcast is followed by comparison with several other podcasts, including Revisionist History [11:30], Remarkable Receptions [30:00], and High Theory [68:00], interspersed with analysis of podcast editing as criticism [50:00], the conservative traditions of orality and radio [60:00], and how podcasting might by made to "count" for disciplinary professionalization [90:00]. Cast (in order of appearance): Sheri-Marie Harrison, Matt Seybold, Joe Locke, Kim Adams, Saronik Bosu, Howard Rambsy II Soundtrack: Joe Locke's "Makram" For episode bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/PodcastingCriticism, or subscribe to our newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.SubStack.com, where you will also receive episode transcripts.

As mass-market literature has been consolidated into a small handful of publishing conglomerates, the critical work once done by publicity and editorial departments has been offloaded. In this episode we discuss the rise of literary agents and their function as critics [8:00] and the role of literary awards in canon formation and other processes of homogenization [28:00]. Finally, we ask, can criticism be a countervailing force against conglomeration? [60:00] Cast (in order of appearance): Dan Sinykin, Matt Seybold, Laura McGrath, Sheri-Marie Harrison, Ainehi Edoro, Howard Rambsy Soundtrack: Joe Locke's "Makram" For episode bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/conglomerate, or subscribe to our newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.SubStack.com, where you will also receive episode transcripts.

What is literary knowledge? And, for that matter, what is literature? A survey of new literary media takes on audiobooks [5:00], BookTube and BookTok [26:00], and Wattpad [75:00]. Cast (in order of appearance): Christopher Newfield, Matt Seybold, Laura McGrath, Mark McGurl, Sarah Brouillette Soundtrack: Joe Locke's "Makram" For episode bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/parabooks, or subscribe to our newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.SubStack.com, where you will also receive episode transcripts.

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 (in order of appearance): Ainehi Edoro, Matt Seybold, Howard Rambsy, Sheri-Marie Harrison, John Guillory, Ryan Ruby Soundtrack: Joe Locke's "Makram" For episode bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/Parasite, or subscribe to our newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.SubStack.com, where you will also receive episode transcripts

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 (in order of appearance): Matt Seybold, Joe Locke, Bruce Robbins, John Guillory, Eddie Nik-Khah, Tom Lutz, Katie Kadue, John Hay, Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera Soundtrack: Joe Locke's "Makram" For episode bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/Paracademy, or subscribe to our newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.SubStack.com, where you will also receive episode transcripts.

The Chicago Critics won the Chicago Fight of the 1930s, but they lost the Chicago Cold War. Chicago Economics got its start dismantling the Chicago Plan. This episode covers the brief victory of the Neo-Aristotelians, the long tail of Economics Imperialism [18:30], the rivalry between economics and literary criticism [39:00], the Chicago Economists' parody of "Treasure Island" [55:00], the implicit alliance between Chicago Economics and the New Critics [60:00], and Robert Hutchins's dream of "The University of Utopia" [72:00] Cast (in order of appearance): Edward Nik-Khah, Matt Seybold, Studs Terkel, Robert Hutchins, Anna-Dorothea Schneider, Christopher Newfield, Anna Kornbluh Soundtrack: Joe Locke's "Makram" For episode bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/ChicagoFight, or subscribe to our newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.SubStack.com, where you will also receive episode transcripts.

A deep dive into the Chicago Critics who inspired John Crowe Ransom's 1937 essay, "Criticism Inc.," as well as their working conditions at the University of Chicago under Robert Maynard Hutchins. His implementation of "The Chicago Plan" and the resulting "Chicago Fight" [9:00], the afterlives of the Chicago Critics in contemporary literary studies [30:00], the import of the Walgreen Hearings [49:00], and the seeding of the Chicago School of Economics. Cast (in order of appearance): Matt Seybold, Bruce Robbins, Anna-Dorothea Schneider, John Guillory, Harold Langer, Edward Nik-Khah, Robert Maynard Hutchins Soundtrack: Joe Locke's "Makram" For episode bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/ChicagoFight, or subscribe to our newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.SubStack.com, where you will also receive episode transcripts.

What is the political economy of New Criticism? Are the racist and reactionary Cold War politics of the New Critics immanent to their trademark method: close reading? The episode begins with the story of Langston Hughes testifying before the the House Un-American Activities Committee on what goes into the interpretation of a poem. What constitutes "tactical criticism" [9:00]? Critics try to rescue close reading from the "bad politics" at its origins [38:00], endorse supplementary methods [59:00], and describe how New Criticism looks from outside the U.S. and U.K. [1:07.30]. Cast (in order of appearance): Langston Hughes, Andy Hines, Matt Seybold, Jed Esty, John Guillory, Anna Kornbluh, Christopher Newfield, Ignacio M. Sanchez Prado Soundtrack: Joe Locke's "Makram" For episode bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/NewCriticism, or subscribe to our newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.SubStack.com, where you will also receive episode transcripts.

Last week, West Virginia University announced that it would abolish its World Languages, Literatures, & Linguistics Department, proposing to replace it with automated digital instruction. This is the apotheosis of trends going back decades. In this episode we talk about the effects of monolingual education, the case study in Ponzi Austerity at WVU [5:00], alternative paths for literary studies [11:00], the cosmopolitan cultural abundance that is sometimes overlooked by Anglophone criticism [50:00], and Matt Seybold interviews Joe Locke about "Makram" and jazz education [57:00]. Cast (in order of appearance): Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera, Ignacio M. Sanchez Prado, Matt Seybold, Joe Locke Soundtrack: Joe Locke's "Makram" For episode bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/GeeGordonPonzi, or subscribe to our newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.SubStack.com, where you will also receive episode transcripts.

How has the systemic defunding and deprofessionalizing of humanities academia impacted literary criticism? Why is there such a flourishing culture industry if demand for cultural education is supposedly declining? We look to megatrends like U.S. hegemony, organizations like the MLA (6:30), analogues like the Eurozone Debt Crisis (19:30), mechanisms of funding and distribution (28:00), and potential futures of disruption and declinism (1:01.30). Cast (in order of appearance): Jed Esty, Matt Seybold, Anna Kornbluh, Christopher Newfield, Yanis Varoufakis Soundtrack: Joe Locke's "Makram" For episode bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/PonziAusterity, or subscribe to our newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.SubStack.com, where you will also receive episode transcripts.

What is criticism? Why should it matter? Can it be saved from the gun-toting businessman? A crossover episode with the High Theory podcast connects internal and external crises (6:00), imagines confrontations with gun-toting businessmen (22:00) and sociopathic administrators (33:00), salutes the vanguard of academic labor (45:00), eulogizes the star system (59:00), demystifies the bad old days of high theory (1.13:00), and recommends "The Shush" (1.24:00). Cast (in order of appearance): Kim Adams, Matt Seybold, Saronik Bosu, John Guillory, Christopher Newfield, Bruce Robbins, Ryan Ruby, Sarah Brouillette, Katie Kadue, Kyla Wazana Tompkins, and Michelle Chihara Soundtrack: Joe Locke's "Makram" For episode bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/HighTheory, or subscribe to our newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.SubStack.com, where you will also receive episode transcripts.

The premiere of a new series, "Criticism LTD," on the contemporary state of criticism. This episode covers proclamations of crisis from legacy media earlier this year, demands for a cosmopolitan turn in literary studies (11:15), an alleged golden age of popular criticism (28:00), and the role of para-academic publications like the Los Angeles Review of Books (54:30). Cast (in order of appearance): Matt Seybold, John Guillory, Ignacio M. Sanchez Prado, Justin Smith-Ruiu, Ryan Ruby, Michelle Chihara For episode bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/GoldenAge, or subscribe to our newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.SubStack.com, where you will also receive episode transcripts.

A first look at the eighth season of The American Vandal Podcast, an assessment of the contemporary state of literary criticism and literary studies through conversations with more than two dozen scholars, students, editors, working critics, and other creators.

On the eve of the largest annual gathering of literary scholars, the MLA convention in San Francisco, a discussion of this year's presidential theme, Working Conditions, with the MLA President. For more about this episode, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/WorkingConditions

Two scholars embedded in publishing discuss the impact of chaos at Twitter and in social media more generally upon journalism and academic presses. Also, some brief discussion of "The Twitter Files" and Mastodon migration. For more about this episode, including a bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/TheTwitterElegies

As the Elon Musk era at Twitter descends ever further into chaos, we discuss the canaries in the coal mine of surveillance, shadowbanning, algorithmic censorship, data firesales, and deplatforming: sex workers. For more about this episode, including a bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/Bollocks

Earlier this month, The Atlantic published an essay by our guest, Ian Bogost, titled "The Age of Social Media is Ending." Since then there have been layoffs at several social media companies, including Facebook and Twitter, and collapsing stock prices throughout the industry. What's happening? And what's next? For more about this episode, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/Downscaling

With the end of Twitter seemingly imminent, content moderation and social media expert, Sarah T. Roberts, discusses Elon Musk's ideology, the labor of social media, and the migration to Mastodon. For more about this episode, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/TheEndOfTwitter

The series finale finds "Dear Television" correspondents joining the podcast to discuss the Fall 2022 franchise season, foremost HBO's "House of the Dragon," but also Disney+'s "Andor" and Amazon's "Rings of Power." For more about this episode, including a bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/CashDragons

A ranging conversation inspired by two forthcoming books about genre, work, and visual culture. The authors consider HBO series like "The Baby," "Barry," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," and "The Larry Sanders Show." For more about this episode, including a bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/Cringe

Inspired by HBO shows "Insecure" and "Rap Sh!t," as well as Yvonne Orji's new stand-up special and recent Emmy wins for Quinta Brunson's "Abbott Elementary" and Jerrod Carmichael's "Rothaniel," Matt Seybold discusses the often precarious role of Black comic creators with two scholars of race, gender, and comedy in the U.S. For more about this episode, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/RootingForEverybodyBlack

No single program transformed the HBO brand like "The Sopranos," which became a hit all over again upon the launch of HBOMax in the midst of the 2020 lockdown. For more about this episode, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/TheSopranosRevival

Is Nathan Fielder's "The Rehearsal" a critique of Reality TV? Moreover, might it be read as an attack on HBO's new parent company, Warner Bros Discovery? A conversation about the show, the network, the conglomerate, and the streaming wars. For more about this episode, including a bibliography of works mentioned, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/TheRehearsal

Our sixth season - "HBO, From Pulp to Prestige" - kicks off with a discussion of conglomeration, collective intention, and corporate authorship through HBO's original programming and especially "Succession," the Emmy-winning tentpole drama produced by Jesse Armstrong and Adam McKay. For more about this episode, including a bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/Succession