Castuner

Upper Middlebrow

Upper Middlebrow

A podcast in which we discuss high-craft works of popular culture

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Episodes

118 episodes

  1. Episode 106: “The Wages of Spin,” or John Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle
  2. Episode 104: ‘Everything but the Squeal,’ or Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle 59:55
  3. Episode 104: “Get Me The Graduate II!” or Larry Peerce’s 1969 Film Goodbye, Columbus 43:39
  4. Episode 103: “A Pleasurable Disgust,” or Philip Roth’s Goodbye Columbus 1:09:09
  5. Episode 102: “The Biggest Iceberg in Film,” or Claire Denis’ Beau Travail 57:01
  6. Episode 101: ‘What Thrums Below,’ or Herman Melville’s Billy Budd 58:43
  7. Episode 100: “Dutiful Dreams,” or Project Hail Mary 2026 Film 53:34
  8. Project Hail Mary Part I (REPOST) 1:14:08
  9. Episode 99: More Robot Friends!: Isaac Asimov’s ‘Robot Visions’ Part 1 with Justin Reich. 54:13
  10. Episode 98: ‘Minor League Stew,’ or John Feinstein’s Where Nobody Knows Your Name, Part II 51:49
  11. Episode 97: “Baseball’s Ballast,” or John Feinstein’s Where Nobody Knows Your Name: Life in The Minor Leagues of Baseball 59:06
  12. Episode 96: “The Clustercus,” or David Halberstam’s The Amateurs, Part II 1:22:25
  13. Episode 95: “Don’t Catch Crabs,” or David Halbertstam’s The Amateurs, Part I 1:13:12
  14. October 6th: Live Draft Coming Soon! 2:00
  15. Episode 94: “Chewing Glass” or Tim Krabbe’s The Rider 1:15:16
  16. Episode 94: “A Swiftly Flattening Universe,” or Cixin Liu’s Death’s End, Part II 1:27:36
  17. Episode 93: “Post Humanity Blues,” or Cixin Liu’s Death’s End Part I 1:22:39
  18. Episode 92: “It’s So Dark,” or Cixin Liu’s The Dark Forest, Part II 1:29:14
  19. Episode 91: “All Chess Pieces, No Chess,” or Cixin Liu’s The Dark Forest, Part I 55:32
  20. Episode 90: “An Egg Slicer Through a Supertanker,” or Cixin Liu’s The Three Body Problem, Part II
  21. Review: John Scalzi’s “When the Moon Hits Your Eye” 10:06
  22. Episode 89: “A Creeping Awareness” or Cixin Liu’s The Three Body Problem, Part I 1:07:24
  23. Episode 88: “Creation’s Folly,” or Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Part II 1:08:23
  24. Digression: Solo Canoe Sailing on Long Lake 30:49
  25. Digression, From the North Woods with Justin Reich 43:11
  26. Episode 87: “A Dude who Made a Dude,” or Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Part I 1:06:41
  27. Episode 86: “A Study in Structure,” or Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet 1:00:38
  28. Ep 85, “Science vs. Evil” or Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”, Part II 1:17:57
  29. Save the Date: The Talented Mr. Ripley, Live Taping, with Jeph Wilkinson. 2:19
  30. Episode 84: “Unnatural Intimacy,” or Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Part I 1:05:53
  31. Episode 83: “I Made a Friend, and Now He’s Dead” or Liliana Calvani’s Ripley’s Game 1:23:06
  32. Episode 82: “Cocaine was Invented for Times Like These,” or Roger Spotiswoode’s Ripley, Underground 1:20:23
  33. Episode 81: “LA Light, LA Darkness,” or Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye w/Professor Peter Lunenfeld 1:18:07
  34. Episode 80: “Frames, Trains, and Burning Automobiles” or Wim Wenders The American Friend 1:08:02
  35. Episode 79: “A Creeping Tom,” or René Clement’s Plein Soleil 52:25
  36. Episode 78: “Our Robot Friends, Part II,” or Ted Chiang’s Exhalation 1:18:29
  37. Episode 77: “A Soup of Dreams,” or James S.A. Corey’s Leviathan Wakes, Part II 1:04:42
  38. Episode 76: Philip Marlow in Space or James S.A. Corey’s Leviathan Wakes Part 1 1:10:22
  39. Episode 75: “It Was Capitalism All Along!” or China Miéville’s The City and The City, Part II 1:07:38
  40. Episode 74: “Our Robot Friends (and Enemies),” with Leah Jones 1:36:15
  41. Episode 73: “Crosshatched,” or China Mieville’s The City and the City Part I 56:14
  42. Episode 72: “Red Herringfest?” or Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest 1:05:31
  43. Episode # 71 The Night of a Thousand Crimes, or Raymond Chandler’s “The Long Goodbye” Part II. 1:04:49
  44. Episode 69: “A Surfeit of Injustice,” or Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye, Part I 1:04:18
  45. Episode 68: “From Fiends to Friends,” or Gary Shteyngart’s Our Country Friends, Part II 1:21:58
  46. Episode 67: Revenge of the Jock-Nerds (Season 3 DRAFT) 58:52
  47. Episode 66: “Russia With Love (Nesting Dolls),” or Gary Shteyngart’s Our Country Friends Part I 1:06:58
  48. Episode 65: “Our Play with Louis,” or Louis Malle’s Vanya on 42nd Street 1:14:53
  49. Episode 64: “A Cloud on a String,” or Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya 1:10:11
  50. Uncle Baggya Previews the Live Draft 3:40