There’s arguably no better time for falling down a cultural rabbit hole than the languid, transitory summer months. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss how the season allows us to foster a particular relationship with a work of art—whether it’s the soundtrack to a summer fling or a book that helps make sense of a new locale. Listeners divulge the texts that have consumed them over the years, and the hosts share their own formative obsessions, recalling how Brandy’s 1998 album, “Never Say Never,” defined a first experience at camp, and how a love of Jim Morrison’s music resulted in a teen-age pilgrimage to see his grave in Paris. But how do we square our past obsessions with our tastes and identities today? “Whatever we quote, whatever we make reference to, on so many levels is who we are,” Cunningham says. “It seems, to me, so precious.”

This episode originally aired on June 27, 2024.

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Heathers” (1988)

“Pump Up the Volume” (1990)

The poetry of Sergei Yesenin

The poetry of Alexander Pushkin

GoldenEye 007 (1997)

“Elvis” (2022)

“Jailhouse Rock” (1957)

“Pride & Prejudice” (2005)

The Neapolitan Novels, by Elena Ferrante

“Ramble On,” by Led Zeppelin

“Never Say Never,” by Brandy

“The Boy Is Mine,” by Brandy and Monica

“The End,” by The Doors

“The Last Waltz” (1978)

“The Witches of Eastwick,” by John Updike

“Atlas Shrugged,” by Ayn Rand

“Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” (2003)

“Postcards from the Edge” (1990)

“Rent” (1996)

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

In the weeks since Pope Francis’s passing, the internet has been flooded by papal memes, election analysis, and even close readings of the newly appointed Pope Leo XIV’s own posts. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider why the moment has so captivated Catholics and nonbelievers alike. They discuss the online response and hear from the writer Paul Elie, who’s been covering the event on the ground at the Vatican for The New Yorker. Then the hosts consider how recent cultural offerings, from last year’s “Conclave” to the HBO series “The Young Pope,” depict the power and pageantry of the Church, with varying degrees of reverence. Leo XIV’s first address as Pope began with a message of peace—an act that may have contributed to the flurry of interest and excitement around him. “The signs are hopeful,” Cunningham says. “And reasons to hope attract attention.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Francis, the TV Pope, Takes His Final Journey,” by Vinson Cunningham (The New Yorker)
“White smoke, Black pope?,” by Nate Tinner Williams (The National Catholic Reporter)
“The First American Pope,” by Paul Elie (The New Yorker)
“Brideshead Revisited,” by Evelyn Waugh
“Conclave” (2024)
“Angels & Demons” (2009)
“The Young Pope” (2016)
“The Two Popes” (2019)
Pope Leo XIII’s “Rerum Novarum”

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

In a new installment of the Critics at Large advice hotline, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz field calls from listeners on a variety of cultural dilemmas, and offer recommendations for what ails them. Callers’ concerns run the gamut from the lighthearted to the existential; several seek works to help ease the sting of the state of the world. “I can’t say that we will solve those deeper issues,” Cunningham says. “But to share art with somebody is to offer them a companion.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

The New York Issue of The New Yorker (May 12 & 19, 2025)
“Birds of America,” by Lorrie Moore
“Eighth Grade” (2018)
“Gilead,” by Marilynne Robinson
“Danny, the Champion of the World,” by Roald Dahl
“Midnight Diner” (2016-19)
“Sentimental Education,” by Gustave Flaubert
“Middlemarch,” by George Eliot
“My Life in Middlemarch,” by Rebecca Mead
“How the Method Made Acting Modern,” by Alexandra Schwartz (The New Yorker)
Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts”
“First Reformed” (2017)
“Better Things” (2016-22)
“The Functionally Dysfunctional Matriarchy of ‘Better Things,’ ” by Alexandra Schwartz (The New Yorker)
“Odes,” by Sharon Olds
TJ Douglas’s “Dying”
Mozart’s “The Magic Flute”
“Peppa Pig” (2004—)
Aaron Copland’s “Billy the Kid”
Dennis Wilson’s “Pacific Ocean Blue”
Caetano Veloso’s “Ofertório”
Crosby, Stills & Nash’s début album

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