Podcast appearances and mentions of violet lucca

Adam sits down with film writer Violet Lucca to discuss David Cronenberg's provocative filmography and his latest foray into body horror, THE SHROUDS. Plus, he revisits STAR WARS: EPISODE III - REVENGE OF THE SITH for the first time since his five-star review in 2005, Josh has a review of the new VULCANIZADORA from director Joel Potrykus, and a new Madness Champion is crowned. This episode is presented by Regal Unlimited, the all-you-can-watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. (Timecodes will not be precise with ads; chapters may start early.) Intro (00:00:00-00:01:55) Review: “Revenge of the Sith” at 20 (00:01:56-00:35:56) Review (JL): “Vulcanizadora” (00:35:57-00:42:52) Filmspotting Family (00:42:53-00:46:34) Next Week / Notes (00:46:35-00:51:54) Preview: Chicago Critics Film Festival (00:51:55-00:57:58) Filmspotting Madness Champion (00:57:59-01:09:41) Violet Lucca Interview (01:09:42-01:39:57) Josh on “The Shrouds” (01:39:58-01:43:06) Credits / New Releases (01:43:07-01:45:47) Links: -Chicago Critics Film Fest ⁠https://www.chicagocriticsfilmfestival.com/⁠ -Filmspotting Madness ⁠https://www.filmspotting.net/madness⁠ -Madness '26 Shortlist ⁠https://letterboxd.com/filmspotting/list/filmspotting-madness-2026-best-of-the-1940s/⁠ -Violet Lucca (“David Cronenberg: Clinical Trials”) ⁠https://www.filmdeskbooks.com/shop/p/david-cronenberg-clinical-trials-by-violet-lucca⁠ Feedback: -Email us at ⁠feedback@filmspotting.net⁠. -⁠Ask Us Anything⁠ and we might answer your question in bonus content. Support: -Join the Filmspotting Family for bonus episodes and complete archive access. ⁠http://filmspottingfamily.com⁠ -T-shirts (and more) on sale at the Filmspotting Shop. ⁠https://filmspotting.net/shop⁠ Follow: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/filmspotting⁠ ⁠https://letterboxd.com/filmspotting⁠ ⁠https://twitter.com/filmspotting⁠ ⁠https://facebook.com/filmspotting⁠ ⁠https://letterboxd.com/larsenonfilm⁠ ⁠https://twitter.com/larsenonfilm⁠ ⁠https://facebook.com/larsenonfilm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As we prepare our fifth season of Exile, we're looking back at our favorite episodes from seasons 1-4. Each re-release brings back a unique, fascinating, and often heart-wrenching story from the Leo Baeck Institute Archives. Known for her candid talk and blunt advice about sex, Dr. Ruth Westheimer is the world's most renowned psychosexual therapist. But beneath her joyful demeanor is a chaotic story about her youth—a girl named Karola Ruth Siegel left orphaned and stateless. How does she harness all of this uncertainty - and the sexual awakenings of adolescence - to make it in the world? Dr. Ruth shared her diary for the first time with the Leo Baeck Institute – and with all of you – for this episode of Exile. We are grateful for her generosity with her time and her story – and for the decades of sound advice.  Learn more at www.lbi.org/westheimer. Exile is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York | Berlin and Antica Productions.  It's narrated by Mandy Patinkin.  Executive Producers include Katrina Onstad, Stuart Coxe, and Bernie Blum. Senior Producer is Debbie Pacheco. Produced by Brian Rice. Associate Producers are Hailey Choi and Emily Morantz. Research and translation by Isabella Kempf. Sound design and audio mix by Philip Wilson, with help from Cameron McIver. Additional sound by Violet Lucca. Theme music by Oliver Wickham. Voice acting by Lucy Hill. Special thanks to Cliff Rubin, Barbara Schmutzler for translating Dr. Ruth's diaries, Dr. Ruth and Ben Yagoda for All in a Lifetime, and Soundtrack New York.

Violet Lucca, film critic and author of the new, essential book David Cronenberg: Clinical Trials, joins us to talk about one of Mr. Cronenberg's early hits, The Dead Zone. Hear us revel in the pleasures of Walken and the various ways critics found to deem the film “tasteful” and “restrained,” and marvel at the silliness of an insane amoral strongman somehow becoming President of the United States.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/one-heat-minute-productions/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

CW: This episode discusses cinematic sexual violence.Violet Lucca, the author of the new monograph David Cronenberg: Clinical Trials, returns to the podcast from Brooklyn to discuss the book and his controversial 1991 adaptation of William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch starring Peter Weller and Judy Davis, filmed in Toronto standing in for 50s New York and Morocco, recreated by Cronenberg's longtime production designer Carol Spier in a former General Electric plant in Toronto's west end.We discuss Cronenberg's lifelong connection to Canadian cinema and the city of Toronto with digressions on Videodrome, The Dead Zone and The Fly before grappling with Naked Lunch, which is less of a literal film version of the novel and more a meditation about the life of Burroughs and what it is to be an artist in general. We also discuss Cronenberg's cinematic explorations of paranoia and conspiracy theories, and his relationship to the queer artistic community in Canada reflected across his career, even if he's always identified himself as a heterosexual man.And we (briefly) contrast Naked Lunch with the new Burroughs cinematic adaptation, Luca Guadagnino's Queer starring Daniel Craig, which we feel misses the boat on how to adapt Burroughs for the screen.Over 30% of all Junk Filter episodes are only available to patrons of the podcast. To support this show directly and to receive access to the entire back catalogue, consider becoming a patron for only $5.00 a month (U.S.) at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/junkfilterFollow Violet Lucca on Bluesky.David Cronenberg: Clinical Trials, by Violet Lucca (Abrams Books) is now available!City TV commercial for their public service program “Toronto the Good” (1975)Universal Pictures' studio trailer for Videodrome (Cronenberg, 1983)Trailer for The Dead Zone (Cronenberg, 1983)Trailer for Naked Lunch (Cronenberg, 1991)Trailer for Queer (Guadagnino, 2024)

Hosts Josh and Jamie and special returning guest critic and author Violet Lucca discuss a double feature inspired by her new book "David Cronenberg: Clinical Trials" with one of his earliest inspirations in sci-fi paperback cover artist turned experimental filmmaker Ed Emshwiller's RELATIVITY (1966) and one of Cronenberg's more unloved and forgotten passion projects, the psychological drama SPIDER (2002) starring Ralph Fiennes as a Freudian schizophrenic whose subjective mind provides Cronenberg with dreamy and depressed experimental form of the film. Next week's episode is a patron-exclusive bonus episode on 90s Stephen King adaptations by horror legends: THE DARK HALF (1993) + THE MANGLER (1955), you can get access to that episode (and all past + future bonus episodes) by subscribing to our $5 tier on Patreon: www.patreon.com/sleazoidspodcast Intro // 00:00-15:53 RELATIVITY // 15:53-1:01:07 SPIDER // 1:01:07-1:56:36 Outro // 1:56:36-1:59:38 BUY VIOLET'S DAVID CRONENBERG BOOK: https://bookshop.org/p/books/david-cronenberg-clinical-trials-violet-lucca/21170132?ean=9781419771910 MERCH: www.teepublic.com/stores/sleazoids?ref_id=17667 WEBSITE: www.sleazoidspodcast.com/ Pod Twitter: twitter.com/sleazoidspod Pod Letterboxd: letterboxd.com/SLEAZOIDS/ Josh's Twitter: twitter.com/thejoshl Josh's Letterboxd: letterboxd.com/thejoshl Jamie's Twitter: twitter.com/jamiemilleracas Jamie's Letterboxd: letterboxd.com/jamiemiller

We discuss The King of Canadian Cinema once more, Mr. David Cronenberg, but this time we are joined by Violet Lucca, the author of the excellent new book DAVID CRONENBERG: CLINICAL TRIALS. Go buy her book now at your local independent bookseller! Join the Patreon now for an exclusive episode every week, access to our entire Patreon Episode back catalogue, your name read out on the next episode, and the friendly Discord chat: patreon.com/theimportantcinemaclub Subscribe, Review and Rate Us on Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-…ub/id1067435576 Follow the Podcast: twitter.com/ImprtCinemaClub Follow Will: twitter.com/WillSloanESQ Follow Justin: twitter.com/DeclouxJ Check out Justin's other podcasts, THE BAY STREET VIDEO PODCAST (@thebaystreetvideopodcast), THE VERY FINE COMIC BOOK PODCAST (www.theveryfinecomicbookpodcast.com) and NO SUCH THING AS A BAD MOVIE (@nosuchthingasabadmovie), as Will's MICHAEL AND US (@michael-and-us).

We discuss The King of Canadian Cinema once more, Mr. David Cronenberg, but this time we are joined by Violet Lucca, the author of the excellent new book DAVID CRONENBERG: CLINICAL TRIALS. Go buy her book now at your local independent bookseller! Join the Patreon now for an exclusive episode every week, access to our entire Patreon Episode back catalogue, your name read out on the next episode, and the friendly Discord chat: patreon.com/theimportantcinemaclub Subscribe, Review and Rate Us on Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-…ub/id1067435576 Follow the Podcast: twitter.com/ImprtCinemaClub Follow Will: twitter.com/WillSloanESQ Follow Justin: twitter.com/DeclouxJ Check out Justin's other podcasts, THE BAY STREET VIDEO PODCAST (@thebaystreetvideopodcast), THE VERY FINE COMIC BOOK PODCAST (www.theveryfinecomicbookpodcast.com) and NO SUCH THING AS A BAD MOVIE (@nosuchthingasabadmovie), as Will's MICHAEL AND US (@michael-and-us).

Inspired by the pulp collectors Gary Lovisi and Lucille Cali, Harper's Magazine senior editor Joe Kloc embarked on a freewheeling search for a magazine lost to time: the inaugural issue of Golden Fleece Historical Adventure. In this week's episode, Kloc joins Violet Lucca to discuss his adventures exploring the world of pulp magazines, the act of collecting, and Lost at Sea, a book based on a previous feature Kloc wrote for Harper's, slated for release in 2025. Subscribe to Harper's for only $16.97: harpers.org/save “The Golden Fleece”: https://harpers.org/archive/2023/10/the-golden-fleece-kloc/ “Empathy, My Dear Sherlock”: https://harpers.org/archive/2020/09/empathy-my-dear-watson-netflix/ “Lost at Sea”: https://harpers.org/archive/2019/05/lost-at-sea-richardson-bay/ 3:55 “What appealed to me about Gary and pulp collecting in general is, this is really for the love of the game.” 4:06 “I was interested in the idea that people would be so passionate about those objects when it didn't have that same monetary incentive.” 16:20 “Pulps technically mean only the magazines, not the paperbacks.” 19:00 “These pulp writers became those comic book writers. Those comic books become comic book movies, and these comic book movies are constantly competing for your attention.” 25:52 “It gives you a feeling of being a child and remembering a time when all was before you and anything could happen.” 27:28 “These objects carry a deeper meaning, even if they've been destroyed or lost.” 37:18 “It's hard to describe the power of Sherlock Holmes in the pulp collecting world.” 41:02 “I'm not going to let go of my imagination. It always has been fun to think like this and it always will be fun to think like this.” 44:40 “It's a form of vernacular creativity.”

Today we're rerunning an episode from 2018 featuring two interviews with Harper's Magazine's former New Books columnist, Lidija Haas, and with our current Easy Chair columnist Rachel Kushner. Listen in advance of our event tonight at the Center for Fiction, “What Happened to Gen X?,” which will see Harper's editor Christopher Beha in conversation with his generational peers Rachel Kushner and Ethan Hawke as they explore the question at the center of our September issue. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee—and Brett Kavanaugh's irate response—was an excruciating bit of political theater, complete with righteous speeches from both sides of the aisle. (It also proved to be not much more than spectacle, as Kavanaugh was sworn in as an associate justice earlier this week.) Nevertheless, the event illustrated how we are socialized to perform and understand gender, race, and class. In this episode, New Books columnist Lidija Haas joined Harper's web editor Violet Lucca to discuss a handful of recent publications that deal with these issues: Lacy M. Johnson's The Reckonings, Rebecca Traister's Good and Mad, and Kristen M. Ghoddsee's Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism. In the second segment, Rachel Kushner, the author of The Mars Room and Telex From Cuba joined Lucca to discuss an essay she wrote that was included in the October 2018 issue's Readings section, pulled from her memories of the late Nineties New York art world. Subscribe to Harper's for only $16.97: harpers.org/save “Learning to Wait,” Rachel Kushner's latest column for the October issue of Harper's: https://harpers.org/archive/2023/10/learning-to-wait/ Rachel Kushner's latest book, The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000–2020: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Hard-Crowd/Rachel-Kushner/9781982157708 Lidija Haas in the Harper's archive: https://harpers.org/author/lidijahaas/ Lidija Haas's review of Rebecca Traister's Good and Mad for Bookforum: https://www.bookforum.com/print/2503/rebecca-traister-s-case-for-feminist-rage-20155 “Red Letter Days,” Rachel Kushner's 2018 essay on the late Nineties New York art world: https://harpers.org/archive/2018/10/red-letter-days/ “What Happened to Gen X?”, our event tonight at the Center for Fiction: https://centerforfiction.org/event/the-center-for-fiction-and-harpers-magazine-present-what-happened-to-gen-x/

Only the good die young—no, really. The historian and Harper's Magazine contributor Daniel Bessner joins Violet Lucca to discuss the series of love fests for Henry Kissinger, and Christopher Hitchens's “The Case Against Henry Kissinger,” an iconic two-part takedown of the statesman published in early 2001. You can read this masterwork—and everything else Harper's has published since 1850—for only $16.97 a year: harpers.org/save The first part: https://harpers.org/archive/2001/02/the-case-against-henry-kissinger-part-one/ The second part: https://harpers.org/archive/2001/03/the-case-against-henry-kissinger-part-two/

Known for her candid talk and blunt advice about sex, Dr. Ruth Westheimer is the world's most renowned psychosexual therapist. But beneath her joyful demeanor is a chaotic story about her youth—a girl named Karola Ruth Siegel left orphaned and stateless. How does she harness all of this uncertainty - and the sexual awakenings of adolescence - to make it in the world? Dr. Ruth shared her diary for the first time with the Leo Baeck Institute – and with all of you – for this episode of Exile. We are grateful for her generosity with her time and her story – and for the decades of sound advice.  Learn more at www.lbi.org/westheimer. Exile is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York | Berlin and Antica Productions.  It's narrated by Mandy Patinkin.  Executive Producers include Katrina Onstad, Stuart Coxe, and Bernie Blum. Senior Producer is Debbie Pacheco. Produced by Brian Rice. Associate Producers are Hailey Choi and Emily Morantz. Research and translation by Isabella Kempf. Sound design and audio mix by Philip Wilson, with help from Cameron McIver. Additional sound by Violet Lucca. Theme music by Oliver Wickham. Voice acting by Lucy Hill. Special thanks to Cliff Rubin, Barbara Schmutzler for translating Dr. Ruth's diaries, Dr. Ruth and Ben Yagoda for All in a Lifetime, and Soundtrack New York. 

Mass demonstrations have swept through Israel since January 4, when Yariv Lenin, Israel's justice minister, announced proposed changes to the country's judiciary. If enacted, this so-called “Supreme Court override” bill would limit the Court's power, as well as the power of government legal counselors; in their place, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition would be granted a majority on the committee that appoints judges, thereby limiting the Supreme Court's ability to rule against the executive and strike down legislation. Why is this happening now, and how much is at stake? The most common explanation is that Netanyahu is (yet again) under indictment, and this judicial overhaul plan would undermine the people and institutions likely to put him in prison. But Bernard Avishai, a professor at Hebrew University and Dartmouth College, the author of The Tragedy of Zionism and The Hebrew Republic, and a frequent contributor to Harper's Magazine, explains that this is “only half the truth,” and the full explanation is far more complex, requiring an understanding of a culture war between theocracy and democracy that has persisted since Israel's founding. Read Avishai's past essays for Harper's: https://harpers.org/author/bernardavishai/ Subscribe to Harper's for only $16.97: harpers.org/save This episode was produced by Violet Lucca, with production assistance by Ian Mantgani

Anne Fadiman unpacks her latest essay, “Frog,” a 6,000-word piece about Bunky, her family's African clawed frog. Although he was easy to care for, this “unpettable pet” raised a number of philosophical and ethical questions about pet ownership. For nearly two decades, Bunky lived inside a too-small aquarium on Fadiman's kitchen counter, ribbitting for a mate that could never come. Fadiman probes her continued guilt over whether this animal had lived a decent life—after all, you can't spay or neuter a pet frog. Suffused with this unease, Fadiman's essay departs from the typically saccharine or sentimental approach to writing about pets and death, respectively. As she explains in this episode, “Death is hard to face, so it's interesting to face. It's a literary challenge. And not all deaths are the same.” Bunky's departure lends lessons on writing, caretaking, connections, confinement—in a word, relationships. Read Fadiman's essay: https://harpers.org/archive/2023/03/frog-what-happens-to-the-pets-that-happen-to-you/ Subscribe to Harper's for only $16.97: harpers.org/save This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Maddie Crum, with production assistance by Ian Mantgani.

Caitlin Chandler talks to Violet Lucca about the nature and purpose of the largely unremarked U.S. military presence in Niger. They discuss the history of the conflict in Niger and the way that U.S., European, and Russian interventions in the region have exacerbated the problems left behind by colonial borders. Chandler explains what the U.S. military's increased reliance on remote warfare after the Iraq War has meant for Nigeriens. She also shares the difficulties of reporting the piece, including the need to hire an armed guard to travel outside the capital. Chandler's letter appeared in the December 2022 issue. Read Chandler's report: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/12/niger-the-next-frontier-in-the-war-on-terror/ Subscribe to Harper's Magazine for only $16.97: harpers.org/save

Michael Robbins explores the shape that apocalyptic thought has taken in American Christianity (despite its slim textual basis) and in contemporary secular contexts like climate catastrophe. Robbins also draws on systems analysis to bring out the structural factors that could be pushing us to the edge of apocalypse. He discloses his own attitude, which is neither optimistic nor defeatist, but rather informed by religious and leftist commitments, which in his view share a “structure of feeling.” Read Robbins's essay: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/12/apocalypse-nowish/ This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Maddie Crum, with production assistance from Ian Mantgani. Subscribe to Harper's for only $16.97: harpers.org/save

Violet Lucca talks to Sasha Frere-Jones about the signs and symptoms of audiophilia. Frere-Jones explains how Spotify Wrapped, yearly best-ofs, and other attempts to quantify and rank music have disfigured the listening experience. He criticizes the assumption underlying audiophilia: that there is a Platonic ideal of what an album is supposed to sound like. Instead, Frere-Jones compares audiophilia to addiction in its obsession with re-creating a certain prior experience—in this case, a certain sound—to the detriment of new experiences. The podcast ends on a personal note, as Frere-Jones reflects on his need for vibey spaces during the pandemic. Read “Corner Club Cathedral Cocoon,” which appears in the December issue: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/12/corner-club-cathedral-cocoon-audiophilia-and-its-discontents/ Subscribe to Harper's for only $16.97: https://harpers.org/save

Clare Bucknell talks to Violet Lucca about Giacomo Casanova, the man whose surname is synonymous with romance. Bucknell discusses the difficulty of separating fact from self-invention in his memoir, Histoire de ma vie. She identifies the novelistic tropes that eighteenth-century readers would have recognized in Casanova's writing and discusses whether the way the Histoire blurs genres prefigures autofiction. Bucknell does not avoid the “challenge of Casanova” and disentangles the ways that Casanova's readers have tried to apply ethical judgment to the simultaneously entertaining and alienating narration of his life. Bucknell's review of Adventurer: The Life and Times of Giacomo Casanova by Leo Damrosch appears in the November issue. Read Bucknell's review: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/11/the-thoughtful-prick-adventurer-the-life-and-times-of-giacomo-casanova-leo-damrosch/ Subscribe to Harper's Magazine for only $16.97: harpers.org/save This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Maddie Crum, with production assistance from Ian Mantgani.

Ryan Ruby talks to Violet Lucca about Vladimir Nabokov's Berlin period. He describes seeing Berlin through Nabokov's eyes and noticing the quotidian texture of the city in the author's novels from this period. He recalls the birth of his own son, in the same neighborhood where Nabokov's son, Dmitri, was born, and learning to appreciate Nabokov's non-linear notion of time, a notion that Ruby believes can help us consecrate everyday life, not just life's “milestones.” The conversation ends with Ruby's defense of Lolita, which he argues intentionally re-creates the way art can seduce the reader into excusing immorality. Read Ruby's memoir: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/11/halensee-a-fathers-guide-to-nabokovs-berlin/ Subscribe to Harper's for only $16.97: harpers.org/save This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Maddie Crum, with production assistance from Ian Mantgani.

It's expensive to run for any elected office—something that's reflected in the highly educated, wealthy individuals who make up most of our representatives. Sarah Smarsh, author of Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth, joins Violet Lucca to discuss the potential outcome of the midterm elections. With voting, abortion, and the economy on the line, will the “blue wave”—itself a reductive term—be reversed? They discuss outsider candidates, issues impacting rural voters, and Smarsh's own experience of being asked to run for Senate—and why she decided not to. Read Smarsh's essay: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/11/in-the-running-sarah-smarsh-almost-running-for-office-kansas/ Subscribe to Harper's for only $16.97: harpers.org/save This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Maddie Crum, with production assistance from Stephanie Hou.

Elizabeth Barber and Matt Johnson speak to Violet Lucca about the politics and methods of factory farming. Barber and Johnson offer insights into the subject from the perspective of a not entirely neutral observer and a criminally liable activist, respectively. Barber discusses the difficulties of writing about a subject that intrudes uncomfortably on people's lifestyles and routines, while Johnson notes the difficulty of attracting media attention to the subject at all. They both discuss what ethical consumption means for them. “Standing Trial” appears in the October issue; read it here: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/10/standing-trial-should-we-care-about-animal-liberation-ag-gag-laws-iowa-slaughterhouse/ This episode was produced by Violet Lucca, Maddie Crum, and Ian Mantgani. Subscribe to Harper's for only $16.97: www.harpers.org/save

Charlotte Shane speaks to Violet Lucca about the state of abortion rights in post-Dobbs America. Shane expresses her frustrations with pro-choice arguments based on the right to privacy or on medical prudence. Instead, she argues that the right to abortion follows from the principle of bodily autonomy. Shane also touches on the difficulty of writing about abortion in an authoritative but not impersonal tone. “The Right to Not Be Pregnant” appears in the October issue; read it here: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/10/the-right-to-not-be-pregnant-asserting-an-essential-right/ This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Maddie Crum, with production assistance from Ian Mantgani. Get an entire year of Harper's Magazine for only $16.97: harpers.org/save

Claire-Louise Bennett speaks to Violet Lucca about Louise Bourgeois's work and the process of free association she chose to document her experience of it. Bennett discusses what it means to regiment pain—the persistent subject of Bourgeois's work, her “business”—to the demands of form in writing. She follows other threads of association that weave together the artist's life and her own. Bennett's review of Louise Bourgeois: The Woven Child and The Artist's Studio: A Century of the Artist's Studio 1920–2020 appears in the September issue. Read it here: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/09/louise-bourgeois-the-artists-studio-a-formal-feeling/ This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Madeleine Crum, with production assistance from Ian Mantgani.

There are many monuments to Cecil Rhodes, the mining magnate and politician who founded the DeBeers Company, around Cape Town, South Africa. These statues have been vandalized and reconstituted, respectively, by his detractors and supporters—the latter camp embedded a GPS device inside concrete within a replacement for a Rhodes statue's decapitated head. In the December 2021 issue, Hedley Twidle, a professor at the University of Cape Town who teaches Nikolai Gogol's story “The Nose” every semester, adopted a unique approach to this ongoing battle. In this episode, Twidle discusses the physical and political landscape that remains from Rhodes's era, the frustrations of a long-unresolved history, and new approaches to writing and thinking about intergenerational traumas. Read Twidle's essay: https://harpers.org/archive/2021/12/to-spite-his-face-what-happened-to-cecil-rhodes-statue-nose/ Subscribe to Harper's for only $16.97: harpers.org/save This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins.

One of the key films of Brazil's Cinema Novo movement, Glauber Rocha's masterpiece TERRA EM TRANSE aka ENTRANCED EARTH (1967) envisions a fictional Latin American country where the left- and right-wing parties both feed from the same trough, and asks what role art can play in revolution, if any. Friend-of-the-show Violet Lucca returns to place the film within the context of Brazil after the 1964 coup that led to decades of military dictatorship."Revolutionary Lessons"by Robert Stamm - https://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC10-11folder/TerraTranseStam.htmlCheck out Violet on The Harper's Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-harpers-podcast/id1405872370Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

One of the key films of Brazil's Cinema Novo movement, Glauber Rocha's masterpiece TERRA EM TRANSE aka ENTRANCED EARTH (1967) envisions a fictional Latin American country where the left- and right-wing parties both feed from the same trough, and asks what role art can play in revolution, if any. Friend-of-the- show Violet Lucca returns to place the film within the context of Brazil after the 1964 coup that led to decades of military dictatorship. "Revolutionary Lessons" by Robert Stamm - https://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC10-11folder/TerraTranseStam.html Check out Violet on The Harper's Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-harpers-podcast/id1405872370

Only 13 percent of Americans receive treatment for substance abuse disorder. The reasons for this alarming gap are, like the causes of addiction itself, multifarious. In West Virginia, the state hardest-hit by the opioid epidemic—where the number of deaths outpaces births—four people who struggled with long-term addiction underwent an experimental procedure in which a microchip was implanted to deliver electrical shocks to the part of the brain involved with processing desire, motivation, and reinforcement. For the September issue, Zachary Siegel, himself a recovered opioid addict, spoke with two participants from the surgical trial. In this episode, Siegel and host Violet Lucca discuss the shortcomings of abstinence-only treatment, received wisdom about sobriety and relapse, issues raised by deep-brain stimulation, the lack of urgency around the opioid crisis, and much more. Read Siegel's article here: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/09/can-a-brain-implant-treat-drug-addiction-neurostimulation/ This episode was produced by Violet Lucca, Maddie Crum, and Ian Mantgani.

“Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence,” wrote Christopher Hitchens, a man whose afterlife on YouTube has come to define the entirety of his decades-long career. Though Hitchens always pilloried the existence of a higher power and those who believed in one, his earlier output—defined by his elite education, Marxism, and savvy deployments of Beltway gossip—seems at odds with his later years as a road-show atheist. In this episode, Christian Lorentzen, a freelance critic who reviewed a collection of Hitchens's writings from the Nineties for the August issue of Harper's Magazine, Maureen Tkacik, a Senior Fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project, and Luke Savage, a staff writer at Jacobin and the author of The Dead Center, reflect on the evolution of Hitchens's style as a writer, thinker, and speaker. Read Lorentzen's review: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/08/the-enemy-of-promise-christopher-hitchens/ This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Ian Mantgani

In August 2021, Fred Bahnson accompanied Father Columba Stewart, a Benedictine monk dedicated to preserving religious texts in zones of conflict, to Gao, Mali. One year later, Bahnson and Stewart reflect on their journey in terms both spiritual and tangible. Stewart tells the story of his life's work and details the importance of digitizing texts—regardless of faith—and of forming human connections across religious boundaries to overcome historical bias and inaccuracy. Bahnson and Stewart delve into their shared interest in the role of memory in a digital world and the dangers that arise when we undervalue listening. Read Bahnson's story here: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/08/the-quest-to-save-ancient-manuscripts-gao-mali/ This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Maddie Crum.

Daniel Bessner, author and professor of American foreign policy at the University of Washington, sits down with web editor Violet Lucca to discuss his Harper's Magazine cover story about the future of the United States and its place in the world during an era of shrinking economic and material might. Bessner suggests a path forward that aims to be practical at the cost of optimism, at a moment when the individual seems to lack any semblance of political agency. Adopting the language of Marx, he posits that “we might be in the era of mutual ruin,” and that a shift toward military and political restraint—rather than misguided liberal interventionism—must begin with a brutally honest diagnosis of the state of the world before any solutions can take shape. Read Bessner's essay: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/07/what-comes-after-the-american-century/ This episode was produced by Violet Lucca, Maddie Crum, and Ian Mantgani.

Although “tree poaching” sounds like a niche, victimless crime, this multibillion-dollar illicit trade contributes to climate change in vulnerable parts of the world and, more often than not, harms humans and animals alike. Environmental scientists and advocates have long understood the potential that lies in tree DNA but have lacked the resources to utilize it. Now, with the assistance of volunteers, researchers are assembling a database that can match stolen wood to stumps. Lauren Markham joins Violet Lucca to discuss her report on black market lumber, the perils of viewing human life as separate from the rest of the natural world, and the dire economic conditions that motivate tree thieves. Read Markham's article here: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/08/tree-sleuths-how-dna-is-transforming-the-fight-against-illegal-logging/ This episode was produced by Violet Lucca, Maddie Crum, and Ian Mantgani.

We've all been scammed in some way. Yet when we hear stories about somebody else getting taken, our knee-jerk reaction is to ridicule their gullibility and deride them for not seeing through the lie. In believing that it's the victims and not the grifters who err, Hannah Zeavin writes, “We do what Americans do best: project the demands of a vulnerable age onto its casualties.” As anyone who has been defrauded can tell you, this bias is reflected in the limited channels for official recourse: unless you were scammed in a very particular way, the police or your bank will pass it off as your fault. Harper's Magazine web editor Violet Lucca speaks with Zeavin about her essay, the tension between the need for and abuse of trust, how fraud reflects weaknesses in our social and economic systems, and how thinking differently about scams could make a better world possible. Read Zeavin's essay: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/07/the-victim-cloud-gullibility-in-the-golden-age-of-scams/ This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Maddie Crum, with production assistance from Ian Mantgani.

Ottessa Moshfegh (Eileen, My Year of Rest and Relaxation) discusses her latest novel, Lapvona. Born out of the seclusion of the pandemic, Lapvona is a work whose perspective-shifting, fable-like narration and medieval setting differ from much of the author's previous work. During the conversation, Moshfegh deconstructs her characters and goes beyond the text at hand to address her writing more broadly, exploring the importance of tone in building genre and systems of information, and her relationship with the grotesque. Read an adapted excerpt of Lapvona: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/06/ina-ottessa-moshfegh-lapvona/ This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Maddie Crum, with production assistance by Ian Mantgani.

Hosts Josh and Jamie and special returning guest Violet Lucca (of Harper's Magazine) discuss the arthouse existentialism of post-war Japan with a double feature of Hiroshi Teshigahara's absurdist horror fable WOMAN IN THE DUNES (1964) and Kinji Fukasaku's apocalyptic wartime drama UNDER THE FLAG OF THE RISING SUN (1972). Next week's bonus episode is a patron-exclusive bonus episode on David Cronenberg's CRASH (1996) and Paul Verhoeven's SHOWGIRLS (1995), you can get access to that episode (and all past + future bonus episodes) by subscribing to our $5 tier on patreon: www.patreon.com/sleazoidspodcast Intro // 00:00-10:03 WOMAN IN THE DUNES // 10:03-1:06:17 UNDER THE FLAG OF THE RISING SUN // 1:06:17-2:04:12 Outro // 2:04:12-2:07:08 MERCH: www.teepublic.com/stores/sleazoids?ref_id=17667 WEBSITE: www.sleazoidspodcast.com/ Pod Twitter: twitter.com/sleazoidspod Pod Letterboxd: letterboxd.com/SLEAZOIDS/ Josh's Twitter: twitter.com/thejoshl Josh's Letterboxd: letterboxd.com/thejoshl/ Jamie's Twitter: twitter.com/jamiemilleracas Jamie's Letterboxd: letterboxd.com/jamiemiller/

It has always been difficult to parse the experience of war. Following two decades of “forever wars” in the Middle East and an accompanying surfeit of information, that challenge has deepened for reporters. Yet the artful, mournful, and devastating images photojournalist Nicole Tung has sent back from Ukraine can break through the din of struggle—if you simply take the time to look closely. Tung, who has shot four photo essays for Harper's Magazine—two in print, and two online—joins web editor Violet Lucca to discuss representation's ethical complexity. How can an outsider portray a conflict they aren't part of? How can difficult images preserve respect for those involved? When does bracing shock become deadening sensationalism? And how has Tung's experience in war zones informed her balance of art and journalism? See Tung's photo essays: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/06/the-matter-of-war-ukraine-kharkiv-bucha-kyiv/ https://harpers.org/archive/2022/05/a-way-out-of-irpin-ukraine-war-russia-photos/ https://harpers.org/archive/2022/04/days-at-war-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-bucha-kyiv-odesa-kharkiv-trostyanets/ https://harpers.org/archive/2022/03/the-battle-for-kyiv-ukraine-photo-essay-nicole-tung/

For over a century, carnivals have provided a unique mix of seedy, woozy, all-American fun. Where else can you knock down milk bottles for prizes, see a man breathe fire, and ride the Tilt-a-Whirl until you throw up fried Oreos? But in a world where entertainment options are vast, what motivates the performers who take on the backbreaking labor and constant travel of the carnival life? In the May issue, author and podcaster David Hill hits the road with the World of Wonders sideshow, a traveling band of sword-swallowers, knife-throwers, and escape artists who remain devoted to the carnival lifestyle, even though their talents might bring them greater fame or riches on TikTok. He joins web editor Violet Lucca for a discussion of his carny ancestors, the history of the midway, and the pleasures of suspending our cynicism and enjoying the hustle, even if that involves spending five bucks to win a teddy bear worth five cents. Read Hill's article about World of Wonders, the oldest traveling sideshow in the United States: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/05/down-the-hatch-on-the-road-with-the-last-american-carnival-sideshow/ This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins.

Humanity has long sought to literally and metaphorically banish darkness. But as poet and novelist Suzannah Showler writes in the May issue, succeeding in that aim poses great spiritual and biological risk. Showler describes her journey to Grasslands National Park, the darkest place in Canada, to commune with obscurity. Her essay examines the cultural and philosophical history of light and darkness, as well as the burgeoning movement to reclaim the night. What Showler finds in the sky is more intricate than just a beautiful starscape: it's a confrontation with herself and what lies far beyond. She joins web editor Violet Lucca for a discussion of the human instinct to colonize the night, the possibilities for global health and happiness offered by the fight against light pollution, and the idea that chasing away darkness isn't the only path to illumination. Read Showler's article here: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/05/in-the-land-of-living-skies-reacquainting-ourselves-with-the-night/

Although video porn, webcams, and teledildonics have existed for decades, rapid advancements in virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and robotics mean that a new era of digisexuality is—please forgive us—coming. In the May issue, Sam Lipsyte explores the “warm, sticky horse carcass” of technological intimacy with a trip to the Erotic Heritage Museum in Las Vegas, where he meets a sex robot named Emma, as well as two scholars who've coined the term digisexuality, a new type of identity. He joins web editor Violet Lucca for a discussion of technology's potential to both offer succor and create stupor, the ethical questions raised by child sexbots and non-consenting AIs, and how the future of sexuality might be monetized by tech moguls. Read Lipsyte's article: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/05/ghosting-the-machine-humans-robots-and-the-new-sexual-frontier-sam-lipsyte/ This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins

Although Thomas Edison is usually credited with the invention of the movie camera, as with so much surrounding the Wizard of Menlo Park, the truth is more complicated. Louis Le Prince, a French-born artist and inventor, made a short film six years before Edison, but mysteriously disappeared before he could get a patent for the device he used to shoot it. In the April issue, Nat Segnit reviews Paul Fischer's The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures: A True Tale of Obsession, Murder, and the Movies, a book that focuses on Le Prince's life and his contributions to cinematic history. Segnit joins web editor Violet Lucca for a discussion of film's contested origins and its rise and fall as the preeminent popular medium. In addition to possibly making the first film, Le Prince was unique among cinematic pioneers in seeing film as more than a gimmick or a product—he understood film's cultural value, its capacity to unite audiences. Segnit and Lucca discuss this “communal swoon,” a rapture in the presence of film's massive, unpausable images, and debate whether different forms of moving pictures, from magic lanterns to television to smartphones, have brought more isolation than interconnectedness. They also discuss the nature of invention—whether advances are more often the product of single, heroic creators or of smaller contributions by countless sources, and hypothesize about how the history of Hollywood would have been different had Le Prince lived. Read Segnit's review: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/04/who-killed-louis-le-prince-on-the-forgotten-father-of-film/ This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins.

Modern American secessionist movements are commonly perceived as buffoonish or quixotic. Yet when their members take up arms after failing to achieve independence by electoral means—and openly state that they have no other recourse than violence—they cannot be so easily dismissed. James Pogue joins web editor Violet Lucca to discuss his reporting from the proposed State of Jefferson, a swath of counties in northern California and southern Oregon that wish to become the 51st state. Since the early 1940s, the Jeffersonians, united by a shared rural identity centered on mining and logging, have agitated for independence in search of better representation and infrastructure. During the COVID-19 pandemic, government health policies and a wave of new arrivals who bought second homes in the area, driving up rents, led many residents to conclude that their way of life was under threat. Their quest to recall three county board members was mocked in the media and treated as illegitimate, which only heightened their sense of persecution, leading many to view violence as the only alternative. Pogue and Lucca discuss how the situation in Redding reveals problems in American democracy, exacerbated by the end of local newspapers and the rise of social media. They also look towards the future: What's next for the State of Jefferson, and will their recall efforts become a model for others? Read Pogue's article here: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/04/notes-on-the-state-of-jefferson-secession-northern-california/ This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins.

Benjamin Kunkel, a novelist and co-founder of n+1, joins Violet Lucca to discuss his review of Richard Zenith's biography of Fernando Pessoa. Pessoa, a Portuguese author who was “too faithful to his imagination to spoil it by fraternizing with the actual world,” wrote poetry attributed to an array of heteronyms—elaborate, invented personalities who each possessed a singular background and point of view. Together Kunkel and Lucca examine Pessoa's body of work, and how his method of writing (and living) oddly echoes contemporary life. Read Kunkel's review: https://harpers.org/archive/2021/11/i-multiplied-myself-fernando-pessoa/ This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins.

There's nothing new about the desire to control our dreams. After all, these highly subjective, intense, yet easily forgettable nighttime experiences have offered artists and spiritual leaders insights to their respective professions throughout history. In the April issue, Michael W. Clune writes about the profound insights offered by the Dormio, a device that offers users the opportunity to influence the content of their dreams. Its lead designer, Adam Haar Horowitz, hopes to create a community of dreamers Clune joins web editor Violet Lucca for a discussion of the relationship between dreams and the brain's capacity for creativity and feeling, as well as how embracing subjectivity can open new ground for dream research. Along the way, they touch on psychedelics and addiction and imagine the possibilities for communities and rituals built around “dream incubation” as well as the lasting effects of Clune's experiences with this new kind of dream machine.

Of all the manifestations of love described in philosophy, eros—the sensual, the passionate—is often the most exalted. But in its power to override rational and ethical impulses, eros can become monstrous, throwing you into a cycle of misery in which you're impervious to common sense. Philosopher Agnes Callard, author of Aspiration, joins web editor Violet Lucca for a cathartic conversation about her own encounters with eros and the feasibility of ethical erotic relationships. Callard and Lucca trace depictions of eros through history, from Plato to modern novels, and reevaluate the concepts of civility and loneliness. They also explore the possibilities and strictures of writing about eros: the space it creates for reflection, the illusory fulfillment of depictions of sex, and whether it's ever possible to treat the topic with anything approaching objectivity. Read Callard's essay here: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/03/the-eros-monster-agnes-callard/ This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins.

How do birds make breakneck turns in perfect formation as they soar thousands of feet above the ground? Nobody knows. But the answer could allow us to better comprehend numerous natural systems, from subatomic particles to schools of fish to ourselves. In the March issue, Vanessa Gregory writes about a group of physicists investigating a similar mystery: how certain species of fireflies synchronize their flashing as part of an elaborate mating ritual. Gregory joins web editor Violet Lucca to delve into the myriad implications of complexity science, the history and methodology of firefly research, and whether systems in nature communicate in ways that don't remotely resemble how humans do. Read Gregory's story: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/03/bright-flight-fireflies-collective-behavior-blink/ This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins

Anyone who has cracked a smartphone screen or needed to replace a failing laptop battery knows the frustration that awaits. Devices that are vital to our daily lives are nearly impossible to fix ourselves, and manufacturer repairs are often so expensive that it makes more sense to trash it and buy a new one. Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson joins web editor Violet Lucca to discuss her article in the March 2022 issue on the Right to Repair movement, which seeks to empower users to fix ailing devices rather than consign them to the trash heap. Dickinson and Lucca discuss the scope of the problem, which pertains to everything from smartwatches to dishwashers to tractors, and how corporations have progressed from ceasing to publish technical manuals to using nonstandard parts that render their products impenetrable black boxes. They delve into the environmental impact of these corporate decisions and trace the progress of the Right to Repair movement from small online tinkerer communities to federal legislation and executive orders. All the while, Evitts Dickinson and Lucca plumb some of the deepest issues raised by the movement, including the role consumer behavior played in creating the current situation and the very nature of ownership. Read Evitts Dickinson's annotation: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/03/your-own-devices-right-to-repair-movement-ifixit/ This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins.

It's often thought that world-famous athletes hype themselves up into a fit of frenzy or descend into a state of serene calm in order to excel in front of huge crowds. But many athletes can't help but hear one voice inside their heads—that of their coach, who seems to guide them every step of the way. Stanford anthropologist T. M. Luhrmann spent two years interviewing elite athletes about what went through their heads while competing, and she joins web editor Violet Lucca to discuss her findings. Lucca and Luhrmann discuss the lingering effects for athletes who cede internal authority, as well as how others groups of people—such as evangelicals and those with schizophrenia—experience the voices that guide or threaten them. These relationships are often complex, and Lucca and Luhrmann explore the idea that hearing voices isn't necessarily cause for alarm, but a part of our rich mental landscape that often goes undiscussed. By understanding how culture and human intention affect our interior world, we may come to a deeper understanding of the mind. Read Lurhmann's story here: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/03/voice-lessons-how-coaches-get-in-athletes-heads This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins

Nicolas Cage—who draws inspiration from Elvis, superhero Luke Cage, Edgar Allen Poe, and others—has an unmistakable dramatic style that has garnered a cult following. Dan Piepenbring joins web editor Violet Lucca to analyze Cage's “neo-shamanic” acting, how he stands apart from other actors who revel in bigness (aka hams), and how he has used the press to cultivate eccentricity and has made himself into something more interesting than, yet inseparable from, the characters he plays. Their discussion stretches across Cage's massive filmography, from David Lynch's Wild at Heart to Nick Powell's Outcast, a direct-to-streaming release. Read Piepenbring's review:

The broad strokes of the Jim Crow South are well-known: the laws, the cruelty, and the protest movements that ultimately brought the era to an end. But as Adolph Reed Jr. argues, less attention is paid to the quotidian details of everyday life within that socio-economic system. Reed, whose book The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives is excerpted in the February issue, joins web editor Violet Lucca to discuss his attempt to access historical truth through his own memory, and the implications of different ways of understanding America's racial history. Reed and Lucca explore questions related to recent efforts to make slavery the essential formative black American experience, and Reed advocates for the preservation of the open-endedness of history—of seeking to understand the past as it was, rather than as a source of inspiration or moral superiority. Read the excerpt of The South: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/02/separate-and-unequal-the-south-jim-crow-and-its-afterlives-adolph-reed-jr/ Class Matters podcast: https://classmatterspodcast.org/ This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins

Permitless carry is the law in more than twenty states, even though it's unpopular with the vast majority of gun owners. Rachel Monroe, author of Savage Appetites: True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession, joins web editor Violet Lucca to discuss her latest report on the small, vocal groups of gun activists who are agitating to expand this right. The two also break down the false ideas that shape gun legislation in the U.S.—of the typical gun owner, a good guy with a gun, and of a purer past of gun ownership—along with an upcoming Supreme Court case that could lead to more armed people than ever before. Read Monroe's cover story: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/02/free-country-permitless-carry-new-guns-rights-extremism/ This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins.

Jessica Camille Aguirre joins web editor Violet Lucca to discuss “Another Green World,” her piece in the February issue that explores a new experiment inside the infamous Biosphere 2 facility near Tucson, Arizona. Together, they discuss the relationship between climate change, the desire to travel in space, and a failure to confront the lingering colonialist tendency to control and exploit earth's natural resources until they are exhausted. Does the impetus to find another home for humanity betray a discomfort with our ecological interdependence? Is it an attempt to absolve ourselves for harming the planet when there's still time to make it livable again? Issues around science and climate reporting are also discussed. Read Aguirre's essay: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/02/biosphere-2-ecosystem-space-exploration-another-green-world This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins.

Rafil Kroll-Zaidi, a contributing editor to Harper's Magazine, joins web editor Violet Lucca to discuss Findings, one of the most iconic sections of the magazine, and his recent short story, “An Errand.” Together, they explore his process for finding Findings and carefully juxtaposing recent scientific studies to form an alternately juvenile and highbrow comedic chronicle. They also delve into the world of Old Delhi to examine Kroll-Zaidi's short story from the January issue, which finds a brother and sister on a quest to find a seller of hearts. They discuss the ways in which the story blends contemporary reality with folklore, and how Kroll-Zaidi's work on Findings informs his fiction. Findings: https://harpers.org/sections/findings/ “An Errand”: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/01/an-errand-rafil-kroll-zaidi/ This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins.