The American Age

White Supremacy: Institutional Misanthropy

061 – What does institutional "white" power look like in the 21st century? In what ways are institutions oriented against people of color, and in what ways are institutions a result of that historical orientation? The hosts untangle the ways people use and are used by that history.

White Supremacy: Structural Impediments to African-American Progress

060 – What do structural impediments to African-American progress look like in the United States? Even if cultural bias can be controlled, there is a history of segregation in real estate and education that has shaped contemporary American communities.

White Supremacy: Obama, Excellence, and Black Aspiration

059 – The hosts discuss Obama's legacy as a "black" leader, and what it means about the present and future of "white" misanthropy. In particular his 2013 and 2016 speeches at Moorehouse and Howard Universities are closely examined.

White Supremacy

058 – The hosts begin their conversation about "white supremacy." What does the supremacy of whites mean? Who is "white"? Are institutions or individuals primarily to blame for its perpetuation? And is it, in fact, perpetuating? Join us as we work through these and other questions.

Pornography, Part VI: Race

0057 - The hosts conclude their conversation with a discussion of the role of race in the sexual imagination. Why is the white, blonde female body so often the location of heterosexual desire in American culture? Why is the male black body so often fetishized?

Pornography, Part V: Desire and Despair

056 - The hosts continue their conversation about pornography. This week they explore the emotional cost of pornography. Who shapes our desires? And what happens when we are regularly reminded of what we don't have?

Pornography, The Conversation, Part IV: Why Do We Need or Want Pornography?

55 – The hosts continue their discussion of pornography. Exploring their own consumption, the varieties and limitations of desire and its representations (sexual and otherwise), they move closer to some understanding of pornography's persistence across time.

Pornography, the Conversation, Part III: Ideology versus Evolution

054 – C. Travis Webb, Seph Rodney, and Steven Fullwood continue their discussion about pornography. Picking up on last week's conversation, the hosts explore how ideology shapes our views of pornography, and what role evolutionary politics might play in our voyeurism.

Pornography, the Conversation, Part II: Pornography and Public Health

053 – C. Travis Webb, Seph Rodney, and Steven Fullwood continue their discussion about pornography. What happens when pornography becomes the primary method of sex education? The advantages and disadvantages of access to pornography are discussed, such as addiction and sexual liberation.

Unlucky Days Again

052 – C. Travis Webb, Seph Rodney, and Steven Fullwood return to the topic of cyclical time. Every year in the Mesoamerican calendar there were five unlucky days between the end of the ritual calendar and the start of a new solar calendar. Are the days between Christmas and New Year a similar experience for twenty-first century Westerners?