The Zeitgeist Tapes

By: The Zeitgeist Tapes
  • Summary

  • Where politics and pop culture collide. Every month journalist Emma Burnell and Professor Steve Fielding discuss the way politics is interpreted through popular culture.
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Episodes
  • Running on Empty
    Aug 4 2024
    In this episode Emma and Steve discuss 1988 film Running on Empty. Described by Steve as a 'Hallmark film for terrorists' the film follows the Pope family as the evade the police living in suburban domestic bliss - but only for short periods at a time.

    Directed by Sidney Lumet and starring River Phoenix, Judd Hirsh, Christine Lahti and Martha Plimpton this film combines a discuss of radical politics with a more traditional coming of age family drama.

    Link to the New York Times article discussed: https://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/18/movies/film-view-sentimentalizing-60-s-radicalism.html?unlocked_article_code=1._U0.Se0R.62RNH6uMNg0H&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

    Link to the Dirty Dancing episode discussed: https://audioboom.com/posts/6941048-dirty-podding


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    36 mins
  • The Pickwick Papers election
    Jun 3 2024
    This month it’s another election special! Emma and Steve discuss the chapter about the election in Charles Dickens’ Pickwick Papers.

    Those who know Emma (and especially those who studied with her) will know that she tried to read the whole book once and gave up halfway through with a lifelong aversion to Dickens. But here we talk about the interesting - and interestingly negative – way that the election is presented and the similarities with practically all depictions of politics ever since.

    You can read The Pickwick Papers here (we are covering Chapter XIII) https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/580/pg580-images.html#link2HCH0013

    Steve’s essay which informed this episode is here https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1111/2041-9066.12084


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    33 mins
  • Comedians
    May 6 2024
    This month, Emma and Steve are joined by comedian, writer, director and comedy trainer Logan Murray to talk about Trevor Griffith's Comedians.

    Originally written in 1975 and translated for TV as a Play For Today the show follows a group of men looking to become successful club comedians as they do their final showcase in front of an audience.

    The play uses a lot of language that is very much 'of its time' but does so in questioning of how comedy works, what it is for and how we use it both to elevate and victimise and reflect the society we live in.

    Logan Murray's website: https://loganmurray.com/
    Emma's comedy routine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpKMzGNmzSQ


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    47 mins

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