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This Is Critical — Society & Culture
This Is Critical

Fearless, sophisticated culture criticism for all generations. Nothing is off-limits, nothing dumbed down. With American culture on the rocks, we’re split into fake “wars” about everything from avocados to bicycles to medical masks. It’s time we took a critical lens to every facet of our shared experience. And that’s what Virginia Heffernan is prepared to do.

Copyright: © Stitcher

Latest Episodes:

The Best of Slimes Jun 09, 2022

Show notes

Today's slime toys are not your kid brother's ooey-gooey, neon-green puddles: they're unicorn-colored, calming, ASMR wonders. Science journalist Daniel Engber joins Virginia to dig into a contemporary cultural history of slime — and why it's more relevant today than anyone could have predicted.

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Here's to New Mrs. Robinson Jun 02, 2022

Show notes

In Julia May Jonas’s shocking debut novel Vladimir, the unnamed narrator — a 58-year-old female English professor — takes her lust for a younger colleague to unimaginably dark lengths. How do the ripple effects of patriarchy impact how we understand, even empathize with her monstrous actions? Jonas joins Virginia to mine the depths.

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Demystifying the Black Manosphere May 26, 2022

Show notes

Eric Eddings and Brittany Luse, hosts of the For Colored Nerds podcast, take Virginia on a wild ride through the wildly popular Internet subcultures of the Black Manosphere and its almost-counterpart, Femininity Coaching. They get into why Black men and women might feel drawn to these reactionary gender roles, and why it seems like each group is talking past the other.

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Tucker Flexes His Big Man Muscles May 19, 2022

Show notes

With his bozo ode to testosterone, Tucker Carlson joins the ranks of Mussolini, Berlusconi, Vladimir Putin, and Donald Trump in a pose of cartoon virility. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author ofStrongmen: Mussolini to the Present joins Virginia to break down the authoritarian’s obsession with this weird flex—and what happens when he can’t pull it off anymore.

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The Deeply Weird Mind of Elizabeth Holmes May 12, 2022

Show notes

In The Dropout, showrunner Liz Meriwether created a fictional version of audacious megascammer Elizabeth Holmes. How was Meriwether able to humanize a such a dangerous fraudster? Liz joins Virginia for a rousing conversation on all things The Dropout.

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Will Musk Bring Gamergate Back to Twitter? May 05, 2022

Show notes

The news that Twitter has a new emperor got people riled up. But what will Elon Musk's takeover really mean for the platform? Game designer Brianna Wu describes how she worked with Twitter to prevent the kind of violent harassment she got during #GamerGate. But with Musk in charge, she says, the most rabid trolls seem to be on their way back.

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Flipping the Script at Amazon Apr 28, 2022

Show notes

Workers at an Amazon warehouse in New York shocked the company and voted to unionize this month. It was a David-and-Goliath victory. Reporter Gloria Oladipo tells us how the staggering win came about, and why Gen Z believes their labor movement is just getting started.

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Dying to Live Forever Apr 21, 2022

Show notes

Journalist Peter Ward has spent years among the “immortalists,” studying the obscure things they do in hopes of living forever. But what happens when these methods go too far? And what do we lose when immortality becomes more important than living?

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The Rise and Fall of a Campus Cult Apr 14, 2022

Show notes

Three years ago, reporters Ezra Marcus and James Walsh broke the story of con man Larry Ray and the Sarah Lawrence students he exploited. Now, a week after Ray’s conviction, Ezra and James are here to explain what his crimes reveal about the figures we trust most.

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Putin's Brain Apr 07, 2022

Show notes

Does a shadowy and dangerous Russian philosopher hold the key to the war in Ukraine? Ethnographer Benjamin Teitelbaum explains the life and work of Alexander Dugin—the occultist, far-right folk hero, and geopolitical strategist who says Russia is just getting started.

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