It’s been a while since we devoted a whole episode to one TV show. We’ve done it with a couple of the Marvel shows as well as stuff like Game of Thrones and Watchmen. We did a show on the Queen’s Gambit, and we loved Bridgerton enough to do TWO episodes on it. We talked about the Good Place and of course, one of our earliest episodes was about Riverdale, the best show on television. We certainly can’t devote episodes to every show we watch… mostly because we watch a LOT of television. But every once in a while a show comes up that definitely deserves the kind of pseudo-academic pop culture analysis with drinking and swearing that we do here. And if there’s a show about academics in a literature department… well, that was obviously something we had to address. If you’re an academic, particularly one in an English department in America, you already know that we’re talking about Netflix’s The Chair, which premiered last week. If you’re not an academic… well, there’s a decent chance that you’ve never actually heard of it. So, on this episode, Hannah, Wayne, Katya and Mav are joined by Kathy Newman and returning guest Natalie Sheppard-Baudean to talk about Deconstructing the Chair! So listen and let us know what you think. If you’ve seen the show, do you agree with us. If you’ve not seen the show, have you even heard of it? In fact, even if you haven’t seen the show, let us know your take on our analysis in the comments. We’re certainly curious.

Citations and Links:

* This episode’s Call for Comments* “The Harvard PhD Turned Screenwriter Behind Netflix’s Hit ‘The Chair’” by Alison Herman* “Practicing the Equitable, Transformative Pedagogy We Preach” by Cathy N. Davidson and Shelly Eversley* “I’m an Asian American woman in academia. Here’s what ‘The Chair’ gets right” by Nancy Wang Yuen* “Other Voices: Social change and ‘The Chair’” by Kathy Newman

* Thank you to Maximilian’s