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The New Yorker

Critics at Large is a weekly culture podcast from The New Yorker. Every Thursday, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss current obsessions, classic texts they’re revisiting with fresh eyes, and trends that are emerging across books, television, film, and more. The show runs the gamut of the arts and pop culture, with lively, surprising conversations about everything from Salman Rushdie to “The Real Housewives.” Through rigorous analysis and behind-the-scenes insights into The New Yorker’s reporting, the magazine’s critics help listeners make sense of our moment—and how we got here.

Critics at Large | The New Yorker

“The Journey,” a five-part audio investigation by Ava Kofman, unravels the mystery of how Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang, a wealthy Los Angeles couple, obtained dozens of children through nearly as many surrogates—and exposes a scandal that threatens to undermine the entire surrogacy industry.

In Episode 1, “Gifts,” a woman in Texas agrees to carry a child for the couple. She thinks she’s helping a family in need. Then she becomes a whistle-blower.

In the Dark is an acclaimed investigative-journalism podcast that launched in 2016. Its third season won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for audio.

To keep listening to “The Journey,” search for In the Dark wherever you get your podcasts.
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Introducing: “The Journey,” from In the Dark

As the school year resumes, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider the work—and pleasure—of teaching and learning, reflect on their own experiences in the classroom, and counsel listeners on scholastic concerns. One teacher calls in asking for texts she could assign to combat apathy among her high-school students; another is looking for works that depict the highs and lows of her chosen career; and a graduate student seeks works of poetry to convince skeptics of the form’s artistic value. The hosts discuss the ways in which teaching is itself a kind of art form. “Teaching is so much a kind of performance,” Cunningham says. “You have to be the one out on the ledge . . . to establish a new frontier of, ‘You are allowed to be excited about this.’ ”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Less Than Zero,” by Bret Easton Ellis

Homer’s Odyssey

“Black Boy,” by Richard Wright

“The Great Gatsby,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“A Complicated Kindness,” by Miriam Toews

“Black Swan” (2010)

“The Holdovers” (2023)

“Democracy and Education,” by John Dewey

“The Class” (2008) 

“The Simpsons” (1989-)

“Are You My Mother?,” by Merve Emre (The New Yorker)

“Dead Poets Society” (1989)

“Theme for English B,” by Langston Hughes

“Llull,” by Ariana Reines

“Odes,” by Sharon Olds

“The Red Poppy,” by Louise Glück

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

That Back-to-School Feeling

Upon news of Dolly Parton’s death last week, flags across the country were lowered to half-mast. A petition circulated to rename the Nashville airport in her honor, and social media read like a greatest-hits reel of the charisma and musical acumen that made her universally beloved. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham and Naomi Fry are joined by three fellow New Yorker writers to celebrate Parton’s life and work, and the legacy she leaves behind. Kathryn Schultz, who penned Parton’s Postscript, discusses her undersung, “Oprah-like” business savvy and deep commitment to philanthropic causes; Amanda Petrusich distills Parton’s vast discography down to three essential tracks; and Lauren Michele Jackson considers how the star’s carefully crafted persona played up aspects of her femininity while transcending divisions of race and class. “The ready word one reaches for is ‘saint,’ right?” Schultz says. “This is someone who came from nothing and might reasonably have felt the instinct to hoard everything she had. And she had the absolute opposite instinct, which was to give as much away as she could.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“9 to 5” (1980) 

Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” 

“Dolly Parton for the People,” by Kathryn Schultz (The New Yorker)

“Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business,” by Dolly Parton 

“Country Music” (2019)

Dolly Parton’s “Better Get to Livin’ ”

“What Dolly Parton Built,” by Amanda Petrusich (The New Yorker)

Beyoncé’s “JOLENE”

Dolly Parton’s “The Bridge” 

Dolly Parton’s “Little Bird”

“The United States of Dolly Parton,” by Lauren Michele Jackson (The New Yorker)

Barbara Walters’s 1978 interview with Dolly Parton

“Taking In the Scene at Daisy Chain Fields, the Zoomer Lilith Fair,” by Lauren Michele Jackson (The New Yorker)

“Back: Essays on the Soul and Spine of America,” by Lauren Michele Jackson

Dolly Parton’s “Backwoods Barbie” 

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Remembering Dolly Parton

In May, two low-budget movies from début filmmakers opened in theatres and quickly made box-office history. “Obsession” and “Backrooms,” which together have grossed nearly a billion dollars, defied conventional industry wisdom and inaugurated the burgeoning genre of “Gen Z horror.” On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz are joined by New Yorker culture editor and horror enthusiast Alex Barasch to discuss this new canon, beginning with the most recent entry, Alex Ullom’s “It Ends.” Like Curry Barker and Kane Parsons—the directors of “Obsession” and “Backrooms,” respectively—Ullom is a twentysomething who honed his craft on YouTube. This content pipeline has already become a model for Hollywood executives who are scrambling to cash in on the phenomenon. But these films’ sensitivity to the predicaments of young viewers, who grew up online and came of age during the pandemic, may be the real key to their commercial success. “It’s people responding to another member of their generation speaking directly to them,” Barasch says. “I hope that that is what is sought and funded and rewarded in this new era.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Why Horror Still Haunts Us” (The New Yorker)

“Obsession” (2026)

“Backrooms” (2026)

“It Ends” (2026)

“The Twenty-Six-Year-Old Behind ‘Obsession,’ a Terrifying Tale of a Crush Gone Awry,” by Alex Barasch (The New Yorker)

“No Exit,” by Jean-Paul Sartre

“Weapons” (2025)

“Portal” (2007)

“Iron Lung” (2026)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is Gen Z Afraid Of?

During her tenure as The New Yorker’s television critic, Emily Nussbaum famously railed against ranking the year’s best shows; she once wrote a piece entitled “I Hate Top Ten Lists.” But naming her favorite series of all time is an easier proposition, and the honor goes to a little-known Canadian production from the early two-thousands that dramatized the colorful characters and commercial struggles of a fictional Shakespearean theatre festival. In the final episode of this summer’s Critics at Large interview series, Alex Schwartz talks with Nussbaum about her love of “Slings & Arrows,” which pioneered a complex balance of comedy and drama that would eventually become a hallmark of prestige television. Today, Hollywood showrunners including David Simon, the creator of “The Wire,” sing its praises—and yet it remains largely overlooked by audiences. Nussbaum, who’s lately been writing as the magazine’s theatre critic, is on a mission to change that. “The history of TV is the confusion between whether something is good and whether it’s popular and commercial,” Nussbaum says. “ ‘Slings & Arrows’ is an example of a show that is the best show—regardless of how many people watch it.” 

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Cue the Sun,” by Emily Nussbaum“Slings and Arrows” (2003-2006)“Hamlet,” by William Shakespeare“Macbeth,” by William Shakespeare“King Lear,” by William Shakespeare“30 Rock” (2006-13)“Orange Is the New Black” (2013-19)“Call My Agent!” (2015-19)“The Studio” (2025—)“Next to Normal” (2025)“Succession” (2018-2023)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.
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Critics’ Cult Classics: Emily Nussbaum on “Slings & Arrows”

In the second in a series of Critics at Large interview episodes devoted to the topic of cult classics, Naomi Fry talks with the New Yorker staff writer Hannah Goldfield about how that designation applies in the culinary realm. The two discuss specialty ingredients that appear on menus for only the briefest of moments, out-of-print cookbooks that go for hundreds of dollars on eBay, and once niche restaurants that have blown up in the TikTok era. Then, Goldfield makes her case for the particular staying power of Judy Rodgers’s “Zuni Café Cookbook,” which has influenced countless chefs and food writers—including Samin Nosrat, whose “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat” immediately soared to the top of best-seller lists upon its release, in 2017. “The Zuni Café Cookbook,” though less accessible, has attracted such illustrious devotees for a reason. “It’s text-heavy. It’s huge in size. It’s a bit intimidating at first,” Goldfield says. “But if you are interested in cooking—or if you have a curiosity about it, even—it’s an incredible resource.” 

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Heartburn,” by Nora Ephron

“The Joy of Cooking,” by Irma S. Rombauer

“Cooking with Love,” by Ruth Sirkis

“The Surprising Endurance of Martha Stewart’s ‘Entertaining,’ ” by Hannah Goldfield (The New Yorker)

“Entertaining,” by Martha Stewart

“The Zuni Café Cookbook,” by Judy Rodgers

“Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat,” by Samin Nosrat

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.
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Critics’ Cult Classics: Hannah Goldfield on the Food World’s Secret Tastemakers

When it dropped in January of 1997, Camp Lo’s “Uptown Saturday Night” thrilled some listeners and confounded others. On the first in a series of Critics at Large interview episodes devoted to resurfacing beloved cult classics, Vinson Cunningham talks with Hanif Abdurraqib, a contributing writer for The New Yorker and a diehard fan of the Camp Lo project. Abdurraqib describes “Uptown Saturday Night,” which leaned on Blaxploitation tropes to paint a strikingly cinematic picture of New York City, as “essentially a heist film” unto itself. Together, they discuss the album’s lukewarm reception at the time, and why its creative approach to storytelling seemed to land on deaf ears. One explanation is that the hip-hop marketplace of the era was increasingly demanding that musicians pick a lane: underground or mainstream, socially conscious or unapologetically opulent. “ ‘Uptown Saturday Night’ got lost in that because it didn’t really have a foothold in either world,” Abdurraqib says. “At a time when a lot of these guys with underground roots were bending to the hyper-commercialization of hip-hop, Camp Lo never changed who they were.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

Camp Lo’s “Uptown Saturday Night”

Fugees’ “The Score”

“Uptown Saturday Night” (1974)

“Midnight Express” (1978)

“The Black Connection” (1974)Dynasty’s “Adventures in the Land of Music”

Elliott Wilson’s review of “Uptown Saturday Night” (The Source)

Slum Village’s “Fan-Tas-Tic (Vol. 1)”

Puff Daddy’s “No Way Out”

Pete Rock and Camp Lo’s “80 Blocks from Tiffany’s”

Camp Lo’s “Black Hollywood”

Jay-Z’s “American Gangster”

Wyclef Jean’s “The Carnival”

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Critics’ Cult Classics: Hanif Abdurraqib on Camp Lo’s “Uptown Saturday Night”

Colson Whitehead’s ascent in the literary world has seemed, like much of what he does, impressively effortless. Though he’s best known for “The Underground Railroad” and “The Nickel Boys”—both of which were awarded Pulitzer Prizes—his œuvre also includes a mystery set amid rival schools of elevator inspectors, a zombie novel, and an autobiographical coming-of-age story. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz survey Whitehead’s wide-ranging body of work. The hosts are joined by their fellow staff writer Julian Lucas, who recently profiled Whitehead for The New Yorker. Together, they discuss three central works: “The Underground Railroad,” which catapulted its author from literary darling to mainstream celebrity; “Sag Harbor,” which fictionalizes, barely, Whitehead’s summers in the Hamptons and the family dramas that played out there; and “Harlem Shuffle,” the first installment of the crime trilogy that concluded this month, with the publication of “Cool Machine.” On the page, Whitehead is a true Gen X ironist, transmitting heavy histories and themes with levity. Despite the occasional darkness of his subject matter, he’s also one of our funniest novelists. “He has this way of, almost like a standup comedian, drawing you into this playful patter,” Lucas says. “Then your defenses go down, and that’s when he hits you with something that grabs you emotionally, or that pulls you into a story.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“The Elusive Promise of the First Person” (The New Yorker)

“The Nickel Boys,” by Colson Whitehead

“Colson Whitehead’s Big Score,” by Julian Lucas (The New Yorker)

“The Colossus of New York,” by Colson Whitehead

“The Underground Railroad,” by Colson Whitehead

“Sag Harbor,” by Colson Whitehead

“Harlem Shuffle,” by Colson Whitehead

“Cool Machine,” by Colson Whitehead

“Why Bother?” by Jonathan Franzen (Harper’s)

“The Odyssey” (2026)

“Who Owns the Odyssey?” (The New Yorker)

“Don’t Use A.I. to Do This,” by Colson Whitehead (The New York Times)

“John Henry Days,” by Colson Whitehead

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Irony and the Ecstasy of Colson Whitehead

The new game show “Nation’s Dumbest,” flips the classic “Jeopardy!” script on its head. The format: twelve famous-ish contestants are peppered with basic logic and trivia questions. The twist is that those who perform well are sent home, with the last one standing receiving the title of “Nation’s Dumbest.” On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider how the figure of the idiot has evolved over time, from Shakespearean fools—whose position of apparent ignorance allows them to speak difficult truths—to more recent “happy fools” like Austin Powers and the goofy, stunt-obsessed heroes of the “Jackass” franchise. Once a laughingstock, the idiot has reached new heights of influence in the era of A.I. summaries and the infinite scroll. Resisting stupidity can feel like an uphill battle. “Whatever it is to be smart, I’m doing this Sisyphean thing of continuing to push it up the hill, and the rock feels heavy,” Cunningham says. “The question is: is society a wind at your back, or going in the opposite direction?” 

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Nation’s Dumbest” (2026-)

“Jeopardy!” (1984-)

“Austin Powers” (1997)

“Seinfeld” (1989-98)

“The White Lotus” (2021-)

“30 Rock” (2006-13)

“Tracy Morgan Turns the Drama of His Life Into Comedy,” by Vinson Cunningham (The New Yorker)

“American Humor,” by Constance Rourke

“Born Yesterday” (1950)

“Legally Blonde” (2001)

Green Day’s “American Idiot”

“Jackass: Best and Last” (2026)

Shakespeare’s “King Lear”

Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”

“A Short History of Stupidity,” by Stuart Jeffries

“The Year in Stupidity,” by Naomi Fry (The New Yorker)

“A Theory of Dumb,” by Lane Brown (New York)

“Naked Gun” (2025)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Golden Age of the American Idiot

In its nearly three-thousand-year history, the Odyssey has undergone as many twists and turns as its protagonist does on his journey home to Ithaca. Its origins as oral poetry suggest countless revisions before it was even put into text—and many more followed, as translators have wrestled with how best to express Homer’s ancient Greek verse in their own languages. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider the latest rendition, a film adaptation by the director Christopher Nolan. The movie’s two-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar budget, A-list cast, and use of cutting-edge IMAX technology make it maximalist in every sense of the word. It’s elicited glowing reception from early viewers—and faced preëmptive criticism from the right. Drawing on the scholar Emily Wilson’s 2017 translation of the epic, Nolan has modernized the dialogue; his focus on the erosion of societal values also speaks directly to the anxieties of our era, in which so many norms and institutions feel newly precarious. “The Odyssey persists because the world does keep on evanescing behind us,” Cunningham says. “The question of how to move on is always fresh.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“The Odyssey” (2026)

“Planet of the Apes” (1968)

“Oppenheimer” (2023)

“Troy” (2004)

“Why the Odyssey Keeps Defeating Filmmakers,” by David Denby (The New Yorker)

“L’Odissea” (1968)

Emily Wilson’s translation of the Odyssey

Robert Fagles’s translation of the Odyssey

Daniel Mendelsohn’s translation of the Odyssey

“The Dark Knight” (2008)

Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Who Owns the Odyssey?

The K-pop group BTS—by many metrics, the most popular band of all time—had a meteoric ascent before its members were called away by mandatory South Korean military service. Now, nearly four years later, the group has returned with a new record, “Arirang.” On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz delve into the album as well as the live-streamed concert and documentary that have accompanied its release, both on Netflix. “Arirang” is being framed as a return to the group’s Korean roots, albeit one that signifies a new, more mature era for its members, who are now in their late twenties and early thirties. The hosts consider BTS’s meticulously crafted image and its relationship to its devoted followers, known as ARMY. Intense fandom is nothing new—just ask the Beatles—but K-pop stans are particularly invested in the lives (and livelihoods) of their favorite idols, even paying for the chance to message them directly. “This further privatization of what we call parasociality,” Cunningham says, “if that can be monetized and organized, it really is the final frontier of the pop star.”
Read, watch, and listen with the critics:
BTS’s “Arirang”“BTS: The Return” (2026)“KPop Demon Hunters” (2025)Justin Bieber’s “Swag”“The K-Pop King,” by Alex Barasch (The New Yorker)The music video for BTS’s “Swim”“Judy Blume: A Life,” by Mark OppenheimerThe Beatles’ “Let It Be”
New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.
Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.

 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Soft Power of BTS

Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst

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