An ever-growing collection of conversations about literature, humor, and history in America, produced by the premier source for programming and funding scholars...
A two-part meditation on the history of journalism and the fate of investigative journalism under tech fascism begins with the model of Ida Tarbell, the epochal Wall Street Journal reporting on Facebook in 2021 [6:00], the professionalization of journalism during the Gilded Age and interbellum periods [38:00], the relationship between Silicon Valley and news organizations in the 21st century [54:00], the legacy of newspapers [63:00], and a periodization of print media [71:00].
Cast (in order of appearance): Gil Duran, Matt Seybold, Jeff Horwitz, Andie Tucher, Jacob Silverman, Jeff Jarvis
Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective
Narration: Nathan Osgood & SNR Audio
For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/Gutenberg, or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.substack.com
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1:34:30
The Gilded Network
Our 150th anniversary celebration of Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner's "The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today" turns to political economies of mass media, then and now, beginning with a close reading of the novel's title. We are then introduced to the tech fascist fantasy of the Network State [21:00], theories of post-capitalism [47:00], ways of reading from the right [58:00], and a more optimistic technofuturism [77:00}
Cast (in order of appearance): Matt Seybold, Jeffrey Insko, Anna Kornbluh, Gil Duran, Eleanor Courtemanche, Jordan Carroll, Douglas Dowland, Jeff Jarvis
Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective
Narration: Nathan Osgood & SNR Audio
For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/GildedNetwork, or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.substack.com
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1:36:38
A Journey of Curiosity
The second act of "A Tale of Today," focused on HBCUs and the political economy of education in Gilded Ages old and new, concludes with a journey of curiosity through the unschooling movement, a historicist close reading of Ruth Bolton's time at Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania [24:40], analysis of the transition from secondary schools to higher education [35:00], a summary of this part of the series [82:00], and hope from the forgotten migration [87:30].
Cast (in order of appearance): Astra Taylor, Matt Seybold, Laura Heffernan, Rachel Sagnar Buurma, Alexander Manshel, Annie Abrams, Crystal Sanders
Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective
Narration: Nathan Osgood & SNR Audio
For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/JourneyOfCuriosity, or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.substack.com
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1:36:51
The First Curriculum Is Work Without Wages
Following Jelani Favors's description of how the second curriculum of HBCUs has been compromised since the 1980s, we look back at the origins of Howard University in the Freedman's Bureau [10:00], discuss the labor history of literature instruction [28:00], and mark the college football playoffs by discussing the dehumanization of athletic workers with the authors of "The End of College Football" [44:30].
Cast (in order of appearance): Matt Seybold, Jelani Favors, Laura Heffernan, Rachel Sagnar Buurma, Nathan Kalman-Lamb, Derek Silva
Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective
Narration: Nathan Osgood & SNR Audio
For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/StudentWorkers, or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.substack.com
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1:26:52
Fake Work, Fucking Models, & The Archive of Empire
Archives, physical and digital, are suffering from austerity, enshittification, and censorship. In this episode scholars discuss the ambivalent impacts of digitization, what information matters in the data economy [8:30], an analogy involving European colonialism [23:00], the competition to document between corporations and universities [46:00], the duty to tell the truth freely [73:30], preserving the counternarratives to empire [81:00], and managing an archive through Orbanization [95:30].
Cast (in order of appearance): Laura Heffernan, Rachel Sagnar Buurma, Matt Seybold, Kelly Grotke, Asheesh Kapur Siddique, Leigh Claire La Berge, Crystal Sanders, Jared Loggins, Andrew Douglas, Timothy Barber
Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective
Narration: Nathan Osgood & SNR Audio
For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/ArchiveOfEmpire, or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.substack.com
An ever-growing collection of conversations about literature, humor, and history in America, produced by the premier source for programming and funding scholarship on Mark Twain's life and legacy.
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