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(SUB)TEXT Literature and Film Podcast

(SUB)TEXT Literature and Film Podcast

Analysis of a book, movie, play, or poem.

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May 3, 2021

(post)script: Post-Chekhov, Pre-Stoic

To listen to this episode, please subscribe to (post)script at Patreon.

Wes & Erin say hello to Easter and goodbye to the Amazing Mr. Chekhov. Wes talks about his upcoming The Stoic Guide To Happiness course on the educational app Himalaya (promo cod STOIC to listen for free). He talks about how there’s some crossover between ancient Greek Stoicism and psychoanalysis (and not just, as has long been acknowledged, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). Stoicism asks us to pry apart two different forms of suffering: on the one hand, everyday and ordinary suffering that we cannot avoid in our lives; on the other, suffering that is avoidable and the product of our vanity: this involves some sense of being wronged (or “narcissistically injured”) by other people, society as a whole, or even fate. Both psychoanalysis and Stoicism help to get us beyond such attitudes by teaching us to mourn our losses as losses (and something we can’t control), instead of holding onto them as a kind of personal insult. This state of mind becomes our liberating locus of control, if we can cultivate it.

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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!

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(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.

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