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Analysis of the Gilded Age tropology of alienation precedes discussions of Hubert Humphrey & Tim Walz [9:00], the reception of "Hillbilly Elegy" and its aftermath [38:00], and "The Mismeasurement of Orcs" [78:00].
Cast (in order of appearance):
Andie Tucher is the H. Gordon Garbedian Professor of Journalism at Columbia Journalism School and the author of Not Exactly Lying: Fake News & Fake Journalism In American History (Columbia UP, 2022) and Froth & Scum: Truth, Beauty, Goodness, & the Ax Murder in America’s First Mass Medium (UNC Press, 1994).
Samuel G. Freedman is Professor at the Columbia Journalism School and the author of Into The Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey & The Fight For Civil Rights (Oxford UP, 2023).
Douglas Dowland is Professor and Chair of English at Ohio Northern University and the author of We, Us, & Them: Affect & American Nonfiction From Vietnam To Trump (U. Virginia, 2024).
Dan Sinykin is the Winship Distinguished Research Professor of English at Emory University and the author of Big Fiction: How Conglomeration Changed The Publishing Industry & American Literature (Columbia UP, 2023). He is also co-editor of Close Reading For The 21st-Century (Princeton UP, 2025).
J. D. Connor is Associate Professor of Cinematic Arts in the Division of Cinema & Media Studies at University of Southern California. He is the author of The Studios After The Studios (Stanford UP, 2015) and Hollywood Math & Aftermath (Bloomsbury, 2018). He is also the author of the City of Industry blog.
Robert T. Tally Jr. is Professor of English at Texas State University and the author of For A Ruthless Critique of All That Exists (Zer0, 2022) and The Mismeasure of Orcs: A Critical Reassessment of Tolkien’s Demonized Creatures (McFarland, 2025)
Matt Seybold is Associate Professor of American Literature & Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College, as well as resident scholar at the Center For Mark Twain Studies and executive producer of The American Vandal Podcast.
All music for this season of The American Vandal Podcast comes from the Tennessee-based roots ensemble DownRiver Collective. Most of the tracks come from their most recent EP, Off The Shelf. You can purchase it direct from the band here. It's also available on Spotify and Apple Music.
Tracks features in this episode are “Steam Whistle,” “Dead To Me,” “Daylight Breaks,” and “Days Don’t Stop.”
Episode Bibliography:
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on The Origin & Spread of Nationalism (Verso, 1983)
Ian Buchanan, “On Fredric Jameson’s Fables of Aggression” Verso Blog (April 14, 2024)
Gerry Caravan, “Tolkien Against The Grain” Dissent (Winter 2025)
J. D. Connor, Florence Dore, & Dan Sinykin, “Rebel Yale: Reading & Feeling Hillbilly Elegy” Los Angeles Review of Books (January 10, 2018)
Douglas Dowland, We, Us, & Them: Affect & American Nonfiction From Vietnam To Trump (U. Virginia, 2024)
Douglas Dowland, Weak Nationalisms: Affect & Nonfiction in Postwar America (U. Nebraska, 2019)
Gil Duran, “Where J.D. Vance Gets His Weird, Terrifying Techno-Authoritarians Idea” The New Republic (July 22, 2024)
Samuel G. Freedman, Into The Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey & The Fight For Civil Rights (Oxford UP, 2023)
Samuel G. Freedman, “High School Project On Genocide Was A Portent of Real-Life Events” New York Times (April 23, 2008)
Samuel G. Freedman, “Congressman, Teacher, Soldier, & He’s Back In Town For A Visit” New York Times (April 25, 2007)
Samuel G. Freedman, Small Victories: The Real World of A Teacher, Her Students, & Their High School (HarperPerennial, 1991)
Samuel G. Freeman, “Republicans Are Banning Books About Historical Truths Their Own Leaders Have Apologized For” Los Angeles Times (June 27, 2022)
Bryant Morey French, Mark Twain & The Gilded Age: The Book That Named An Era (Southern Methodist UP, 1965)
Emma Goldberg, “1 Writing Class, 35 Years, 113 Deals, 95 Books” New York Times (May 25, 2025)
John Guillory, Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation (U Chicago P, 1993) [30th Anniversary Edition]
Arlie Hochschild, Strangers In Their Own Land: Anger & Mourning On The American Right (New Press, 2016)
Mitchum Huehls, “What’s the Matter with Ohio? Liberal Democracy and the Challenge of Irrationality” American Literary History (Summer 2020)
Fredric Jameson, Fables of Aggression: Wyndham Lewis, The Modernist As Fascist (U California P, 1979) [Verso Edition]
Fredric Jameson, Representing Capital: A Reading of Volume One (Verso, 2014)
Fredric Jameson, The Geopolitical Aesthetic: Cinema & Space In The World System (Indiana UP, 1995)
Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative As A Socially Symbolic Act (Cornell UP, 1981)
Fredric Jameson, Marxism & Form (Princeton UP, 1974)
Fredric Jameson, “Postmodernism & The Consumer Society” [Original Version, 1983], revised and extended version published as first chapter of The Cultural Turn (Verso, 1998)
Fredric Jameson, “Reification & Utopia in Mass Culture” Social Text (Winter 1979)
Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Duke UP, 1992)
Naomi Klein, Doppelgänger: A Trip Into The Mirror World (Penguin RandomHouse, 2024)
Patrick McKay & John D. Payne, The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power (Amazon, 2022-Present)
Sam Quinones, Dream Land: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic(Bloomsbury, 2015)
Nick Reding, Methland: The Death & Life of An American Small Town(Bloombury, 2009)
Julia Reichert & Steven Bognar, American Factory (2019)
Matt Seybold et al, “The Gilded Network” The American Vandal Podcast (March 20, 2025)
Matt Seybold et al, “Always Historicize?” The American Vandal Podcast (October 1, 2024)
Matt Seybold et al, “Criticism LTD: Continuing The Dialogue” The American Vandal Podcast (February 26, 2024)
Matt Seybold et al, “The Empire of Criticism, Part III” The American Vandal Podcast (November 21, 2023)
Matt Seybold, Dan Sinykin, & Joanna Winant, “Close Reading, Conglomerate Authorship, & Qween Danielle Steel” The American Vandal Podcast (January 1, 2024)
Dan Sinykin, Big Fiction: How Conglomeration Changed The Publishing Industry & American Literature (Columbia UP, 2023)
Robert T. Tally Jr., The Mismeasure of Orcs: A Critical Reassessment of Tolkien’s Demonized Creatures (McFarland, 2025)
Robert T. Tally Jr., “Tolkien’s Deplorable Cultus: Right-Wing Hobbit Enthusiasts & The Urgency of Marxist Criticism in Fantasy” Spectre (August 20, 2024)
Robert T. Tally Jr., Representing Middle-Earth: Tolkien, Form, & Ideology (McFarland, 2024)
Robert T. Tally Jr., “Song of Saruman” Los Angeles Review of Books (December 27, 2014)
Robert T. Tally Jr., “On Always Historicizing: The Dialectic of Utopia & Ideology Today” PMLA (May 2022)
Robert T. Tally Jr., For A Ruthless Critique of All That Exists: Literature in an Age of Capitalist Realism (Zer0 Books, 2022)
Andie Tucher, Not Exactly Lying: Fake News & Fake Journalism in American History (Columbia UP, 2022)
Andie Tucher, Froth & Scum: Truth, Beauty, Goodness, & the Ax Murder in America’s First Mass Medium (UNC Press, 1994)
J. D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy (Harper, 2016)
Mark Twain & Charles Dudley Warner, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) [2006 Modern Library Edition]
Gabriel Winant, The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry & The Rise of Healthcare in Rust Belt America (Harvard UP, 2023)
Nathan Wolff, Not Quite Hope & Other Political Emotions In The Gilded Age (Oxford UP, 2019)
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