Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and Films
Wes Alwan and Erin O'Luanaigh
148 episodes
1 week ago
Subtext is a book club podcast for readers interested in what the greatest works of the human imagination say about life’s big questions. Each episode, philosopher Wes Alwan and poet Erin O’Luanaigh conduct a close reading of a text or film and co-write an audio essay about it in real time. It’s literary analysis, but in the best sense: we try not overly stuffy and pedantic, but rather focus on unearthing what’s most compelling about great books and movies, and how it is they can touch our lives in such a significant way.
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Subtext is a book club podcast for readers interested in what the greatest works of the human imagination say about life’s big questions. Each episode, philosopher Wes Alwan and poet Erin O’Luanaigh conduct a close reading of a text or film and co-write an audio essay about it in real time. It’s literary analysis, but in the best sense: we try not overly stuffy and pedantic, but rather focus on unearthing what’s most compelling about great books and movies, and how it is they can touch our lives in such a significant way.
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and Films
48 minutes 43 seconds
1 month ago
Faith and Industry in “There Will Be Blood”
The clash between Eli Sunday and Daniel Plainview, between religion and industry, steeple and oil derrick, might come down to something like the difference between a gift and a skill. Eli calls himself a son of the hills of Little Boston, an inheritor of land and legacy, a member of a family, and of a faith imagined as a family. Daniel calls himself an oil man, but only after reciting his resume as proof that he’s earned the title. He tends flocks of derricks, not people, and he leases both land and family to strategic, rather than communal, ends. Yet ultimately, each lacks what the other has. What is a gift without control or discipline, a skill without purpose or meaning? And is there a difference between a gift and luck? Wes & Erin discuss Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 film "There Will Be Blood."
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and Films
Subtext is a book club podcast for readers interested in what the greatest works of the human imagination say about life’s big questions. Each episode, philosopher Wes Alwan and poet Erin O’Luanaigh conduct a close reading of a text or film and co-write an audio essay about it in real time. It’s literary analysis, but in the best sense: we try not overly stuffy and pedantic, but rather focus on unearthing what’s most compelling about great books and movies, and how it is they can touch our lives in such a significant way.
