The American Vandal

The first of three episodes based on the "Close Reading For The 21st Century Symposium" hosted by Emory University. The symposium's opening address is followed by short provocations on "Freedom," "The Best," "Language," and "Difficulty," after which a there is a lengthy Q&A.

Cast (in order of appearance): Dan Sinykin, Matt Seybold, Johanna Winant, Beci Carver, Joshua Kotin, Julie Orlemanski, Omari Weekes, Anthony Cuda, John Lysaker, Dez Miller, Jeff Dolven, Oren Izenberg, Benjamin Reiss, Miranda Hickman, Emma Davenport, Farah Bakaari

Date Recorded: November 7, 2025

Music: Danny Weiss Quartet, Moby

Episode Webpage: TheAmericanVandal.Substack.com/RedWheelbarrow

A chance to reflect, with journalism professor Jeff Sharlet, on his book, "The Undertow: Scenes From A Slow Civil War," the looming threat of acceleration, the methods and media of lingering, documentary modernism, and monsters within.

For a bibliography of this episode, please visit TheAmericanVandal.Substack.com/Lingering

The finale of "A Tale of Today," the eleventh season of "The American Vandal."

Matt Seybold offers his journey of curiosity from the end of "Criticism LTD" to "The Technofeudal Text."

Cast (in order of appearance): Matt Seybold, Nathan Wolff

Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective

Narration: Nathan Osgood & SNR Audio

For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit TheAmericanVandal.Substack.com/CruelFuturism

Remastered audio of Fredric Jamesons opening lecture at the 1977 Institute On Culture & Society sponsored by the Marxist Literary Group and hosted by St. Cloud State University. For further context, consider listening to "The Jameson Tapes, Side A" which precedes this episode in The American Vandal Podcast feed.

For a bibliography, please visit or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.Substack.com

The first of two installments contextualizing Fredric Jameson's lectures at the 1977 Institute On Culture & Society begins with a discussion of "Marxism & Historicism," followed by conversations about historicizing the lectures [8:00], the process of recovering them [33:30], a key passage about commodity as its own ideology [55:00}, and the long arc of Jameson's thought and influence [71:30].

Cast (in order of appearance): Robert Tally, Matt Seybold, Anna Kornbluh, Caleb Smith, Fredric Jameson, Isabel Bartholomew

Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective

For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.substack.com