Episode 206 - Cultural Studies

Book Club for Masochists: a Readers’ Advisory Podcast

It’s episode 206 and time for us to talk about the genre of Cultural Studies! We discuss bureaucracy, affluenza, dinosaurs, Dungeons & Dragons, Batman, The Fast and the Furious, and more!

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In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray 🦇 | Jam Edwards

Things We Read (or tried to…)

• Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman
• The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy by David Graeber
• Clever Girl: Jurassic Park by Hannah McGregor
• They Came to Slay: The Queer Culture of D&D by Thom James Carter
• Affluenza: How Overconsumption Is Killing Us--and How to Fight Back, 3rd Edition Mutation by John De Graaf, David Wann, and Thomas Naylor
• Second Language Learning and Identity: Cracking Metaphors in Ideological and Poetic Discourse in the Third Space by Mika Yoshimoto
• On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint by Maggie Nelson
• 2 Trans 2 Furious: An Extremely Serious Journal of Transgender Street Racing Studies edited by Tuck Woodstock and Niko Stratis

Other Media We Mentioned

• Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body by Susan Bordo
• Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber
• The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
• The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning by Maggie Nelson
• Suicide Squad Isekai
• Dimension 20: Never Stop Blowing Up

Links, Articles, and Things

• Tartan Noir
• Secret Feminist Agenda
• Jurassic Park
• Extreme Championship Wrestling
• Pyotr Kropotkin
• Chainmail
• Pathfinder Roleplaying Game
• Lambda Literary Awards
• Girl Dad Press

30 Cultural Studies by BIPOC Authors:

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcasts chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

• There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib
• Aboriginal TM: The Cultural and Economic Politics of Recognition by Jennifer Adese
• The Cultural Politics of Emotion by Sara Ahmed
• Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria E. Anzaldúa
• The Location of Culture by Homi K. Bhabha
• The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Producing Sovereignty: The Rise of Indigenous Media in Canada by Karrmen Crey
• Log Off: Why Posting and Politics (almost) Never Mix by Katherine Cross
• Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique by Roderick A. Ferguson
• Long Live Queer Nightlife: How the Closing of Gay Bars Sparked a Revolution by Amin Ghaziani
• Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures by Gayatri Gopinath
• White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color by Ruby Hamad
• Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
• Crip Kinship: The Disability Justice & Art Activism of Sins Invalid by Shayda Kafai
• Have You Eaten Yet? Stories from Chinese Restaurants Around the World by Cheuk Kwan
• Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics by Lisa Lowe
• Unassimilable: An Asian Diasporic Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century by Bianca Mabute-Louie
• The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee
• Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics by José Esteban Muñoz
• Decolonize Hipsters by Gregory Pierrot
• Black Meme: A History of The Images That Make Us by Legacy Russell
• Introducing Cultural Studies by Ziauddin Sardar
• The Afterlife is Letting Go by Brandon Shimoda
• Wînipêk: Visions of Canada from an Indigenous Centre by Niigaan Sinclair
• Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop by Danyel Smith
• Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity by C. Riley Snorton
• Big Brands Are Watching You: Marketing Social Justice and Digital Culture by Francesca Sobande
• Music Is History by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson
• In Open Contempt: Confronting White Supremacy in Art and Public Space by Irvin Weathersby Jr.
• Gaza on Screen edited by Nadia G. Yaqub

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Join us again on Tuesday, February 4th we’ll be talking about the genre of Monster Romance!

Then on Tuesday, February 18th we’ll be discussing our reading goals and resolutions for 2025!