Episodes
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I could talk about Nicole Kidman for hours. Very few Hollywood actors have had careers this varied, this delightful, this weird â oh, and sheâs also been married to Tom Cruise. She manages to be both chronically underestimated and overrated, and sheâs recently found herself in a slew of roles where she embodies a slew of different rich white ladies, each miserable in their own specific ways. For this episode, Iâm joined by the great Sam Sanders to talk about our own Kidman Syllabi and answer your questions about her most recent roles, (not) aging onscreen, and what makes her such an effective miserable rich person.
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Almost all of the public conversations about sex testing and sports â or, more to the point, who should be allowed to participate in womenâs sports â are pretty bad. In many if not most cases, theyâre outright transphobic; even in the âbestâ cases, theyâre still pretty ham-fisted. But Rose Eveleth is having a very different sort of public conversation about sex testing in their new podcast, Tested â one that looks to the way these tests affect the athletes subject to them, and how the concept of fairness in womenâs sports has become so fraught. For todayâs episode, Rose answers your questions about the history of womenâs sports gender panic, why men arenât subject to the same sex testing, and how the Paralympics imagines âfairnessâ in profoundly different ways. I absolutely loved this conversation. I think you will too.
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Missing episodes?
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âMost people who complain about BookTok have never seen a BookTok.â Alyssa Morris drops that insight about two-thirds of the way through the episode, and itâs such a good point that I almost want to make it the title of the episode. Most people have an idea of what BookTok is (people talking about books on TikTok) but no real understanding of the immensity of BookTok. Itâs talking about what youâve read, sure, but itâs also about recommendations, and performance, and the aesthetics of reading culture â and the criticisms of it have a lot more to do with weird ideas about what reading (or talking about reading!) âshouldâ look like.
If youâre interested in reading culture, youâll be interested in this episode â full stop. Let it surprise you! And make sure to check out Alyssaâs BookTok newsletter, which has quickly become one of my favorite reads of the week.
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A podcast episode on the state of podcasting? Classic Culture Study Pod. At this point in my career, Iâve been interviewed on hundreds of podcasts, been adjacent to the production of dozens, been the host of three pods, and even watched a fourth pod go through two years of production only to get axed. The podcasting world is so dynamic, so weird, and so complicated⊠and industry analyst and critic Nicholas Quah is the best person to talk about its shifts, its future, and the best stuff coming out RIGHT NOW.
You asked so many good questions (about ads, about funding structures, about editing) that Nick and I did our best to answer â but I also canât wait to hear your follow-ups, because this world is ever-changing.
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You might look at the question in the title of this episode and think: duh, itâs because weâre weird about death. But cancer is so common, with so many different variations, with so many ways it can touch your life, in ways immediate and lasting⊠that of course weâve figured out ways to be weird about it. Of course there are bizarre metaphors, of course we donât have space for the messy, extended work of recovery; of course there are bizarre tropes and plot lines intended to make cancer more understandable which just make so many people feel like theyâre âfailingâ at cancer when their own experiences donât fit the popular narrative trajectory.
Dr. Stacy Wentworth is an oncologist, the author of the newsletter Cancer Culture, and the host of Less Radical, a new podcast about the surgeon who revolutionized breast cancer treatment â and changed the way we understand cancer today. And I knew sheâd be the perfect person to talk about the way we talk about cancer, all the weirdness that can accompany it, and how that discourse has changed over time.
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You know that feeling when you and a friend get weird and detailed and hilarious about something you deeply (and maybe irrationally) hate, or find ridiculous, or canât stomach in your vicinity? Itâs one of my favorite versions of friendship intimacy â talking s**t about something you shouldnât dislike nearly as much as you do, because that thing is relatively trivial, but that doesnât mean that the thing itself doesnât make you want to bang your head against the wall.
And thatâs what this weekâs episode is: talking about all of your strong opinions about trivial s**t. Our co-host, Krista Burton, came up with the idea â because itâs a regular feature of her excellent and always entertaining newsletter (O Caftan My Caftan!). So join us as we talk about your strong opinions about gnomes, âjourneyâ and âseason,â boarding planes, late-in-life-lesbian-Tok, calling your romantic person âpartner,â mullets, and a very juicy/useful AAA section about almond boomers. I canât wait to talk even MORE about all of your strong opinions about trivial s**t in the comments.
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Whatâs the difference between a conspiracy theory and gossip? When does joking around about Kate Middletonâs abduction turn into something much darker? Are women actually more susceptible to contemporary conspiracy theories â or are we just finally paying attention to it? Cristen Conger, host of the new podcast Conspiracy, She Wrote joins me to talk about Taylor Swiftâs evil twin, BeyoncĂ©âs illuminati connections, Katie Holmes getting impregnated by Scientology aliens, sex trafficking panics, and how to talk to someone when they start directing a conspiracy theory your way. We go deep down the wormhole in this one, friends, but I think youâre gonna love it.
Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world. If you're already a subscriber-- thank you! Join us in the discussion thread for this episode! Got a question or idea for a future episode? Let us know here.
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You can almost hear the producers trying to sell this show to Hulu: Itâs hot Mormon moms⊠who are also swingers. Turns out only one of them was âswinging,â and the swinging was (in her words) âsoft.â But it was enough to get Hulu â and now, millions of other viewers â on board with Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which tracks the interlocking stories of eight Mormon influencers in Utah.
Like so much of contemporary reality television, this show is glossy, melodramatic, unhinged, and addictive. Itâs entertainment, sure, but itâs also a way for us to think through some of our own understandings of marriage, sex, friendship, religion, and feminism â which is exactly what Sara Petersen and I try to work through in this episode. That, and whether Dakota is a paid actor.
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Weâve had listeners asking us to do an episode on sapphic pop for months now, and were trying to figure out who we wanted to co-host. Then Melody sent me a text: I FOUND THE PERFECT PERSON. That person is Trish Bendix, who just published a sprawling look at the past and present (and popularity) of sapphic pop, from Big Momma Thornton to Chappell Roan. I absolutely loved this conversation, where we did our very best to answer your questions about everything from the â80s sound in contemporary sapphic pop to Jojo Siwa âinventingâ the genre. Plus we talk about âConstant Cravingâ at least three times (which Melody had never heard!!!!) Make sure you check out the show notes to links to all the songs we mention in the episode. Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world. If you're already a subscriber-- thank you! Join us in the discussion thread for this episode! Got a question or idea for a future episode? Let us know here.
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This is a dream come true of an episode: we got the owners of The Ripped Bodice to talk to us about all the ins and outs of running a romance-only bookstore. We talk about everything from the genesis of their annual State of Racial Diversity in Romance Publishing Report to their fav recommendations for tweens and teens âŠ..and how they deal with âvintageâ romances in the store. I found everything about our discussion fascinating â plus, if youâre a paid subscriber, you get very good advice on how to recommend books to others!
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This episode is the Culture Study Podcastâs version of a Just Trust Me. Itâs difficult to describe exactly WHY itâs so good, just that after we finished recording (with Lilah Raptopoulos, host of the podcast Life and Art) Melody and I both immediately texted each other with: SO GOOD!!! The episode is ostensibly about figuring out how to cook in the world of infinite recipes, but itâs also about how we pass down recipes (or gatekeep them), recipes as a form of memory making (and retrieval), recipes as heritage⊠capped off with some practical advice about how to organize the recipes you do have (and how to ascertain if a recipe is âgoodâ).
I canât wait for you to listen, and if you donât think youâre a person that invested or interested in recipes: just trust me.
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Weâre more than twenty years into the current reality boom â and things are getting complicated. What are the unspoken and spoken ethics of signing up to become a reality star? What resources (about harassment and protection, about brand deals) should be made available to anyone who signs a reality contract? Are reality stars scabs during strikes â and should they unionize? WHAT MAKES THESE MELODRAMAS SO COMPELLING? WTF IS SCANDOVAL??? Hollywood correspondent Natalie Jarvey joins me to talk through it all.
(And just to be clear, even if youâre not a huge reality television person, this episode has something for you â I watch very little but Iâm very invested in reality melodrama reality labor as labor)
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Jennifer Romolini is one of my favorite thinkers about ambition, and workism, and the stories we tell ourselves about what we must endure in order to find a modicum of security and pride â and she also happens to be a true scholar of all things Ben Affleck. Months ago, I asked her to come on the podcast to talk about the intersection of Affleck and ambition, but we held the episode for a bit to give it some distance from the (also excellent!!) J.Lo episode. But weâd had it scheduled for today for several weeks â and Iâm writing this intro just hours after the news broke that Lopez had filed for divorce.
The good news is that everything Jenn and I talk about re: Affleckâs star image, ambition, striving, his relationship to stardom just generally â all of that still holds true. Just ignore the part when I say that I donât think theyâre going to get divorced. And I canât wait to hear your thoughts.
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TikTok is filled with wonders. Itâs SO weird. It can make you feel like the algorithm is telling you something you donât even realize about yourselfâŠ.or it serve you a whole bunch of cyst draining videos. In order to answer your questions about WTF is happening in your feed, I knew I needed a weird internet aficionado who also understands the way our tech platforms actually work. I needed Katie Notopoulos. Join us as we talk about the parallel dimension that is TikTok Live, the difference between Reels and TikTok content, those bizarre âbugs all over meâ videos, nail tapping ASMR, the clean girl aesthetic, and SO MUCH MORE.
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Trad Wife Discourse is everywhere. Itâs been everywhere for a while, in part because it offers a twisted fantasy of ease to women who are attempting to negotiate life, and family, and career in a society whose policy is actively hostile to women working outside the home. But Iâve seen a spike in interest in the ramp-up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, where a Trump victory â paired with the explicit goals of Project 2025, J.D. Vance, and Christian Nationalism in general â will make trad wife life just, well, life. It doesnât happen overnight. It happens incrementally, as choices are very slowly taken from you, or made more attractive. To get to what lures women into this life, and just how difficult it is to escape, I wanted to talk to someone who gets it in a way that those lurking in the Instagram comments simply cannot. So today weâre talking with Tia Levings, who left her trad wife life and, through a bunch of therapy and processing and support, figured out how she wanted to tell her story.
Content Warning: In our conversation, we talk explicitly about emotional and physical abuse and coercion. If youâre not in a place where you want to listen to that discussion, Iâd suggest skipping this episode.
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How do the politics of taste and HGTV shows intersect? Why do we watch, why do we feel the way we do when we watch, and how is taste shaped in the process of watching? When Jonathan Menjivar, host of the fantastic podcast Classy, told me he wanted to talk all things HGTV, I was thrilled. In this episode, we discuss the aesthetics of âquiet luxury,â Ben and Erin Napier vs. Chip and Joanna Gaines, the newly ubiquitous neo-farmhouse look and so much more.
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A seven-part Netflix docuseries on the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders called Americaâs Sweethearts? Oh my god, WHAT a rich text. The uniform, the dances, the body norms, the coded language, the particular feminine ideals, the intersections with Texas culture and evangelical culture â thereâs just so much there. And I was thrilled when Sam Sanders and Zach Stafford, two of the co-hosts of the indispensable Vibe Check, agreed to help answer all of your (excellent) questions. (We couldnât get the rights to Thunderstruck, but you can just imagine it playing over the intro and on repeat forever.)
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How are romance writers â and the recent romance boom â chipping away at the norms of Big Publishing? Does self-publishing lead to more diverse authors and characters? How has Amazon both expanded and limited the market? Thatâs what weâre grappling with in todayâs episode.
Back in June, romance novelist Nisha Sharma broke down all the tropes and trends of contemporary romance. Next month, weâll have the owners of a romance bookstore explaining the the big (and complicated) business of romance-only bookselling. And today, we have Christine Larson, author of Love in the Time of Self-Publishing, walking us through the labor dynamics of romance publishing. If you like thinking about different ways of organizing labor, youâll find all of this fascinating â and if youâre a romance fan, itâll make you think a lot about which books end up in front of you and why. Youâre gonna love it.Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world. If you're already a subscriber-- thank you! Join us in the discussion thread for this episode! Got a question or idea for a future episode? Let us know here.
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J.Lo is, as we say in the Culture Study universe, a rich text. There is so much history, so many layers of accumulated meaning, so many relationships, and so little in terms of actual revelations. She gives so much and yet offers so little! Chelsea Devantez is a celebrity memoir aficionado, a humor writer, and a newly-minted J.Lo scholar â and the absolute perfect co-host to unpack all of your J.Lo questions, like why does Mariah hate her, why canât she and Ben be happy, what the hell is going on with the new movie, and what does she actually want?
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Why do jeans make us FEEL THINGS? I mean, I have a lot of feelings about the âgoing out top,â but at least I no longer have to deal with it. Jeans, theyâre still here in my wardrobe, making me feel uncool. Itâs the actual garment, sure, but itâs also a garment in constant fashion flux â and almost always designed to fit one sort of (thin) body. Thereâs no one better to talk about big jeans feelings than Virginia Sole-Smith, whoâs written a four-part series on âjean scienceâ and the relationship between jeans production (and jeans ânormsâ) and anti-fatness. Whether youâre clinging to your comfort jeans or trying to figure out what shoes to wear with a barrel leg or banishing jeans from your closet, this episode is for you.
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