The American Vandal

Opens with Matt Seybold's short history of Instructure, the makers of Canvas LMS, with special emphasis on its acquisition by Dragoneer and KKR in 2024. This talk was delivered at Utah Valley University, with supplemental recording from University of Albany. The second half of the episode features a conversation with UVU faculty and students about the impact of the Generative AI boom on their institution. Cast (in order of appearance): Matt Seybold, Christa Albrecht-Crane, Angie McKinnon Carter, Chiler Moore Date Recorded: March 3, 2026 Music: Danny Weiss Quartet, Moby

From the Close Reading For The 21st Century Symposium, hosted by Emory University. What are the challenges, strategies, and rewards for teaching close reading? What are the stakes of teaching close reading through the nightmare of the contemporary? Cast (in order of appearance): Johanna Winant, Brian Glavey, Matt Seybold, Nathan Suhr-Sytsma, Lindsay Reckson, Christopher Spaide, Katie Kadue, Dan Sinykin, Jeff Dolven, John Lysaker, Omari Weekes, Patrick Sui, Oren Izenberg, Paul Buchholz, Farah Bakaari, Annie Abrams, Beci Carver Date Recorded: November 7, 2025 Music: Danny Weiss Quartet, Moby TheAmericanVandal.Substack.com

From the Close Reading For The 21st Century Symposium, hosted by Emory University. Why is close reading best understood as a conversation? What are its evaluative standards? How does it extend the conversation beyond literary studies? Cast (in order of appearance): Johanna Winant, Matt Seybold, Farah Bakaari, Nathan Suhr-Sytsma, Dan Sinykin, Kimberly Quiogue Andrews, Oren Izenberg, Beci Carver, Brian Glavey, Miranda Hickman, Patrick Sui, Jeff Dolven, Katie Kadue, Omari Weekes, Lisa Lee, Daniel Reynolds, Julie Orlemanski, Joshua Kotin Date Recorded: November 7, 2025 Music: Danny Weiss Quartet, Moby Episode Webpage: TheAmericanVandal.Substack.com/Collarbone

Omari Weeks, scholar of Black literature noted for probing difficulty in reading Black texts. Julie Orlemanski, literary theorist focused on language and hermeneutics. Joshua Coton, critic and teacher reflecting on learning from exemplary readings. Becky Carver, modernist-poetry specialist exploring freedom. They debate difficulty, language, freedom, and model close readings in a lively symposium conversation.

Hosted by the University of Illinois-Chicago United Faculty, a roundtable discussion about confronting the challenges facing higher education labor organizing. Topics included education technology, faculty autonomy, power mapping, board composition, lobbying state legislators, artificial intelligence, surveillance and data-mining, Ponzi austerity, and more. Cast (in order of appearance): Jeff Kessler, Matt Seybold, Anna Kornbluh, Dominique Baker, Peter Coviello, Nassar Mufti, Jeff Edwards Date Recorded: December 4, 2025 Music: Danny Weiss Quartet

The event launching the 2025 Quarry Farm Symposium on Energy Studies begins with opening address by co-organizer Jeffrey Insko, then discussion of the theory of Everyday Ecofascism with collaborators from University of Connecticut [8:00}, then questions from the live audience of Energy Humanities scholars [50:00]. Cast (in order of appearance): Jeffrey Insko, Matt Seybold, Alexander Menrisky, April Anson, Caroline Levine, Brent Bellamy, Thomas S. Davis Date Recorded: October 10, 2025 Music: Redd Holt & The Heptet For more about this episode, please visit TheAmericanVandal.Substack.com/EverydayEcofascism

A spirited discussion of the state of higher education, the history of criticism, and the future of literary knowledge production, recorded with a live audience at University of Pennsylvania's English Faculty Lounge as part of the annual Penn English Department Lecture, delivered this year by Christopher Newfield. Cast (in order of appearance): James English, Christopher Newfield, Matt Seybold, Whitney Trettien, Jenny, Zachary Lesser, Mark Algee Hewitt, Kerry McAuliffe, Eilis Lombard, Laura McGrath, Qing (Ruby) Liao Date Recorded: October 22, 2025 Music: Redd Holt & The Heptet Sound Engineering: Brian J. Kirk For more about this episode, please visit TheAmericanVandal.Substack.com/Penn25

A chance to reflect, with journalism professor Jeff Sharlet, on his book, "The Undertow: Scenes From A Slow Civil War," the looming threat of acceleration, the methods and media of lingering, documentary modernism, and monsters within. For a bibliography of this episode, please visit TheAmericanVandal.Substack.com/Lingering

The finale of "A Tale of Today," the eleventh season of "The American Vandal." Matt Seybold offers his journey of curiosity from the end of "Criticism LTD" to "The Technofeudal Text." Cast (in order of appearance): Matt Seybold, Nathan Wolff Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective Narration: Nathan Osgood & SNR Audio For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit TheAmericanVandal.Substack.com/CruelFuturism

Remastered audio of Fredric Jameson's second lecture at the 1977 Institute On Culture & Society sponsored by the Marxist Literary Group and hosted by St. Cloud State University. For further context, consider listening to "The Jameson Tapes" episodes which precedes this episode in The American Vandal Podcast feed, as well as the first lecture in the series, "Models of Ideological Analysis." For a bibliography, please visit or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.Substack.com