• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
SUBTEXT Literature and Film Podcast

SUBTEXT Literature and Film Podcast

SUBTEXT is a podcast about the human condition, and what we can learn about it from the greatest inventions of the human imagination: fiction, film, drama, poetry, essays, and criticism. Each episode, philosopher Wes Alwan and poet Erin O’Luanaigh explore life’s big questions by conducting a close reading of a text or film and co-writing an audio essay about it in real time.

  • Subscribe
  • About
  • Contact

About Us

What makes us most distinctively human, our reason or our emotions? How do we know when relationships with others are authentic, and when they’re just a matter of utility? Does civilization corrupt or improve us? Is honesty all it’s cracked up to be, or is lying a social inevitability? Which is more important to our happiness, love or work? 

(sub)Text is a podcast about the human condition, and what we can learn about it from the greatest inventions of the human imagination: fiction, film, drama, poetry, essays, and criticism. Each episode, philosopher Wes Alwan and poet Erin O’Luanaigh explore life’s big questions by conducting a close reading of a text or film and co-writing an audio essay about it in real time.

You can find us on the Podcasts app on your iPhone; by searching on Spotify or your favorite podcasts app; or on Patreon (which includes (post)script and all bonus content). You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter, or subscribe to email updates.


Wes Alwan

Wes Alwan lives in Boston, and is co-host of The Partially Examined Life philosophy podcast. He also writes and gives talks about the intersection of philosophy with literature, film, and psychoanalysis. You can find him on Twitter @wesalwan.


Erin O’Luanaigh

Erin O’Luanaigh is a teacher, poet, and jazz singer from Connecticut. Her poems have appeared in AGNI, The Southern Review, 32 Poems, Subtropics, and elsewhere. She lives in Boston, and can be found online here and on Twitter @erinowhat.

Primary Sidebar

Subscribe and Follow

Subscribe on Android Spotify

Rate and Review

Please support the podcast by taking our short listener questionnaire at surveymonkey.com/r/airwave

Subscribing to Bonus Content

This podcast is a labor of love, but even love’s labors are lost when time is money and money is a necessity. So it’s always a good time to help keep us going. If you subscribe on Patreon, you will get bonus episodes and other content, including responses to listener email and our after-show (post)script. You can also just make a one-time donation. It takes a lot of work to prepare to have a high-level discussion, every one to two weeks, of a new text. So if you enjoy or benefit from the show, please chip in. But in any case, thank you for listening!

Updates by Email

The Meaning of All This

(sub)Text is a podcast about the human condition, and what we can learn about it from the greatest inventions of the human imagination: fiction, film, drama, poetry, essays, and criticism. Each episode, philosopher Wes Alwan and poet Erin O’Luanaigh explore life’s big questions by conducting a close reading of a text or film and co-writing an audio essay about it in real time.

The Conversation Continues

How to Listen

You can find us on the Podcasts app on your iPhone; on Spotify or by using our RSS feed on other podcast apps. Subscribing on Patreon will give you a custom feed that includes (post)script and all bonus content. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter, or subscribe to email updates.

Search the Archives

Find Us On

Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsSpotifyAndroidiHeartRadioStitcherRSS

Copyright © 2023 · (sub)Text · Log in