The Flummoxed Podcast: One Writer’s Journey Through the Sacred & the Profane, from Bashō to Bluegrass & Beyond
The Flummoxed Podcast is a supplement to The Flummoxed Substack.
The Flummoxed Substack is a collection of criticism, essays, fiction, poetry, and translations by Ethan McGuire.
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Some of the topics mentioned in “Ep. 11: Zhang Yimou, Zack Snyder, & the Mythological Imagination”:
Introduction:
* Zina Gomez-Liss and The Beauty of Things
* “The Beauty of Things” by Robinson Jeffers
* Zina’s ALSCW 2025 Conference write-up: “For the Psychopomps and Famous Letter Writers”
* My “Poetry and Mythology” panel paper: “Movies as Popular Poetry: Zhang Yimou, Zack Snyder, and the Mythological Imagination”
On Movies and Popular Poetry:
* “Patronage” by Amit Majmudar
* Plato
* Homer
* Cinema
* εἰκός
* ποί-ησις
* Heidegger’s “bringing-forth”
* Schopenhauer’s “representation”
* Xenophon
* Pascal’s “Différence entre l’esprit de géométrie et l’esprit de finesse”
* Heraclitus’s “unity of opposites”
* Schopenhauer’s “will to life”
On Zhang Yimou:
* The NYT’s 2004 interview with Zhang Yimou
* China’s “Fifth Generation Filmmakers”
* Raise the Red Lantern (1991)
* The 2008 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony
* The Guardian’s 2004 interview with Zhang Yimou
* “Red River” by Yue Fei, translated by Ethan McGuire in New Verse Review: A Journal of Lyric and Narrative Poetry
On Zack Snyder:
* The Aristophanic Adam Sandler as discussed by Eric McDonough, Sannah McDonough, and me
* Sndyer, as quoted by Rebecca Winters Keegan for TIME
* The Tang Dynasty’s “new-style poetry”
* Leo Strauss on “understanding the low in the light of the high” (in his 1965 book, Spinoza’s Critique of Religion)
* Peter Lawler on “Plato and the Man of Steel”
* “God is dead” (Nietzsche’s “Parable of the Madman”)
* Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks
In Conclusion:
* Elijah Blumov’s “The Iron Lyre: Poetry, Heavy Metal, and the New Sublime”
* The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry
Other great podcasts to enjoy:
The Flummoxed Podcast’s intro music is by Ricky Skaggs and Tony Rice. The art is by Ethan McGuire and cottonbro studio.
