Topic: Art & Aesthetics

The spectrum of our offerings that engage the techniques and development of the arts throughout history, from classical forms to modernity.

  • Horror in Anime and Gaming
  • Maintenance and Preparation

    Maintenance and Preparation

    Welcome to the sixth installment of Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash, a series looking at the fantasy and the reality of being a sailor in the modern age. Today we’ll be examining the maintenance and preparation of a tall ship.

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  • Building a Better Predator: Werewolves
  • A Day in the Life of a Tallship Sailor
  • Horror in Music

    Horror in Music

    In today’s installment of Zen and the Art of Screaming, we examine the role of horror in music—from musicians selling their souls to the devil for fame & fortune, to artists whose appearance and sound conjure images of demons and hellfire.

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  • Unpacking the Myths

    Unpacking the Myths

    In this, the fourth installment of Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash, your host Jeromy Foberg discusses the many differences between pirates and piracy as they exist in fiction and how they existed.

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  • The Sandman, Part 2

    The Sandman, Part 2

    In this instance, we’ll explore how Gaiman revitalizes the roles of women and trans/queer characters (a segment of the comic book population which has been trampled by sexist expectations in the comic book medium previously). We will also explore how he resuscitates the roles of family identity (an age-old and worn-out theme in the hands of other authors). Familial identity and gender identity are two of the strongest threads of the entire series, and they take on a new and vivid existence through The Sandman texts.

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  • Ballad of the Blue Bomber
  • The Sandman, Part 1

    The Sandman, Part 1

    We owe one of the greatest sea changes in comic book history to the “British Invasion” of the 1980s and ’90s, from the likes of Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. Watchmen and The Sandman ushered in a new era of comics as a legitimate storytelling medium, not just a shallow arena for tights-clad muscle men secure in their abilities to the point of cockiness.

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  • J-Rock Invasion