Resistance Reads

Michael Kilman and Matt Wellstrom take on Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, the dystopian classic of test-tube babies, Soma, and a society engineered for pleasure and stability. We cover Huxley's life and the plagiarism controversies around the novel, the Fordism and mass media that shaped it, and a full summary of the story of Bernard, Lenina, Helmholtz, and John the Savage. Then we ask why this 1930s novel predicted so much of our world: consumerism as control, eugenics, the social media panopticon, influencer culture, and a spectacle no one can escape. Next up for Halloween: Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica.

This week Matt and Michael dive into Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, the Nobel Prize-winning author's short but famously dense 1922 novel following a Brahmin's son through asceticism, wealth, fatherhood, and, eventually, enlightenment. We get into why Siddhartha's arrogance and restless seeking might be his defining trait rather than his wisdom, how the book's ending draws directly on the Heart Sutra, and why "the seeker as identity" can become its own kind of trap, one that keeps you from ever actually arriving anywhere. We also talk personal history: what draws someone to Buddhism in the first place, what a decade of meditation practice actually feels like, and why asceticism and self-destructive habits might be doing the same psychological job. Also featuring our new co-host, Solana the puppy (see her on YouTube if you're listening in audio).

Matt and Michael dive into Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, following Janie Crawford through three very different marriages, from an arranged match built on safety over love, to a mayor's wife silenced into a gilded cage, to a late-in-life partnership that finally gives her something like equality. Along the way they get into Hurston's own roots in early American anthropology under Franz Boas, gossip as a form of community accountability and social surveillance, the economics behind arranged marriage across cultures and time periods, and why the novel's real subject is internal liberation rather than external rescue.   Topics covered: Zora Neale Hurston's life and place in both the Harlem Renaissance and the founding generation of American anthropology Janie's three marriages and what each one costs or grants her The "mule of the world" speech and generational trauma around safety versus freedom Gossip as social surveillance and community accountability, and how it curdles into tabloid voyeurism at scale Arranged marriage, economics, and love as a historical privilege Toxic masculinity, male isolation, and Bell hooks' The Will to Change Why the book's real theme is liberation from within New to the show: check out our Patreon for Resistance Reels (a subscriber-only series on power and resistance in film) and our upcoming nonfiction book club. Next episode: Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse.

Welcome to Resistance Reels, the new companion show to Resistance Reads where hosts Michael Kilman and Matt Wellstrom turn their lens on film and television. This free teaser episode kicks off the show with a deep dive into Andor Season 1, focusing on the Narkina 5 prison arc, one of the most politically dense stretches of television Star Wars has ever produced. Michael and Matt break down how the Empire maintains control through spectacle, psychological manipulation, and manufactured competition, drawing on Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish, David Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 Years, Erving Goffman's concept of the total institution, and Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny. They trace the mechanics of authoritarian control from the electrified prison floors of Narkina 5 to Luthen Rael's devastating "what do I sacrifice" monologue, and close with Nemik's manifesto on the nature of freedom and resistance. If you've ever wanted a genuinely rigorous political and philosophical read on Andor, one that treats it as seriously as the show treats itself, this is it. ⚠️ Contains heavy spoilers for Andor Season 1. This episode is free to everyone. Future episodes of Resistance Reels, including our next one on Andor Season 2 and the Ghorman Massacre, along with our subscriber-only nonfiction book club on science, philosophy, and social theory, are available to Patreon members. Join us: https://www.patreon.com/ResistanceReadsPodcast

TJ Klune's The House in the Cerulean Sea follows Linus Baker, a lonely caseworker for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, sent to investigate a remote island orphanage housing six extraordinary children, one of whom is the literal Antichrist. In this episode of Resistance Reads, Michael Kilman and Matt Wellstrom step away from heavier material for a warmer, more whimsical read that still has real teeth. They dig into institutional bureaucracy and rules versus compassion, the history of forced removal and boarding schools for Indigenous children, why nonprofit and social work burnout happens and why it isn't malicious, the ethics of travel and cultural respect, and why children might be the most powerful resistors among us. They also announce their new Patreon, launching this week, and Resistance Reels, a new segment dissecting film and television starting with Andor. New episodes every three weeks. Next episode is Their Eyes Were Watching God on August 10th 2026

Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light is one of the strangest and most ambitious science fiction novels ever written, a 1967 Hugo Award winner about a crew of colonists who have seized the identities of Hindu gods to maintain technological control over future generations, and the one man who takes on the role of the Buddha to fight back. In this episode of Resistance Reads, Michael Kilman and Matt Wellstrom dig into why this book reads like a portrait of Silicon Valley before Silicon Valley existed, what accelerationism actually means when the people hoarding technology are literal gods, and why the idea of liberty cannot be killed no matter how much power you throw at it. Along the way they cover the New Wave science fiction movement, Joseph Campbell's hero's journey and why it doesn't actually work, the curse of the Buddha, what it means to separate a leader's ideas from their character, and why a sixty year old novel still hits this hard. If you've ever wanted anthropology and science fiction in the same place, you're in the right spot. Next Episode, House on the Cerulean Sea.

What happens when you take H.P. Lovecraft's cosmic horror and hand it to the people he feared most? In Matt Ruff's Lovecraft Country, the real monsters aren't lurking in ancient tomes or sunken cities. They're wearing badges, drawing red lines on maps, and deciding who gets to exist in public after dark. In this episode, Michael Kilman and Matt Wellstrom dig into Matt Ruff's genre-bending novel set in 1950s Jim Crow America, where a Black Korean War veteran and his family navigate sundown towns, racist hauntings, shape-shifting elixirs, and a white occultist with questionable motives, all while facing horrors that don't need magic to be terrifying. We explore: Why H.P. Lovecraft's cosmic dread actually maps more accurately onto the Black experience than onto his own How each chapter uses supernatural horror as an allegory for real Jim Crow era injustices including redlining, minstrelsy, and white allyship with strings attached The question of whether a white author can write the Black experience with integrity, and what Matt Ruff does right Why neutrality is power, and what Ruby's time as a white woman reveals about race, attractiveness, and privilege How the monsters in this book never kill a single Black character Also featuring tangents on Stephen King, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Colorado Constitution written in three languages, and why racism is always the real monster. Next episode: Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light Resistance Reads is a podcast exploring literature, power, and resistance through a social science lens. Hosted by Michael Kilman (Anthropology) and Matt Wellstrom (Political Science).

Matt and Michael dig into John Milton's Paradise Lost, the 17th-century epic poem that tells the story of the Fall from Satan's perspective. They explore why Satan reads as the tragic hero, how Milton's own political defeats and blindness shaped the work, the structural impossibility of free will in a world with an omniscient God, and why Eve gets a far more sympathetic treatment here than in almost any other retelling of the Eden story. The conversation moves into the Lilith midrash, the historical roots of Satan as a concept, and how the Jewish experience of oppression shaped the God of the Torah. They close with the Denver Gay Revolt as a model of effective resistance, and what Milton's Satan can teach us about working inside a broken system rather than just protesting outside it. Next up: Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff.

Matt and Michael dig into Amor Towles' A Gentleman in Moscow, the story of Count Alexander Rostov, an aristocrat placed under house arrest in a five-star Moscow hotel for thirty years. What does it mean to keep your greatest qualities when everything else has been stripped away? They explore the Count's resistance through community and craft rather than power, the extraction logic baked into both capitalism and communism, the tragedy of true believers like Mishka, and why the Bishop is the most recognizable villain in the book. Plus: Napoleon burning Moscow, redundancy versus efficiency as civilizational philosophy, and why the bread was better in Berlin. Next episode: Paradise Lost by John Milton.

What does it mean to exist outside every category society offers? Michael Kilman and Matt Wellstrom explore Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist through an anthropological lens, examining isolation, otherness, gender identity, and what vampires tell us about capitalism and nationalism. Featuring the theory of Mary Douglas, and a discussion of bullies as conservative enforcers of social norms. Next episode: A Gentleman in Moscow.