Shelby Rubino is a person too.

Sure, she just finished her doctorate in Clinical Psychology—and yeah, she recently published a peer-reviewed study in Integrative and Complementary Medicine observing the adverse effects of social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic—but she also binge watches “Sex in the City” like the rest of us, making her the picture-perfect inaugural Tertiary guest.

Even though it’s officially Summertime (i.e., no longer S.A.D. season), the team at Tertiary still felt it appropriate to bring on an expert to help us tackle questions about mental health. After all, the kids are not alright. Together, Tertiary’s first trio laughs, cries, and explores topics like resilience and distress tolerance, collectivism vs. individualism, and the importance of loving, supportive relationships.

Want to be a part of the Tertiary community? Follow us on Instagram, send us an email at tertpod@gmail.com and fill out our Google Form to submit a question that we’ll answer in a future episode. We want to hear from you!

Assigned Reading

• Read Shelby’s paper, “Covid 19’s Social Quarantine-Moderated Self-Reported Mental Health and Substance Use Among US Adults,” here.

Further Reading

• Listen to “John Mulaney Radio” on Pandora here.
• Watch Jason Reitman’s “Thank You for Smoking” on Amazon Prime. If you want.

Our intro and outro music comes from “Cloud Dancer” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0.

Listen, listeners—you spoke, and we listened. For today’s episode, Tertiary hosts Heaven-Leigh and Justin dive head first into our first-ever listener question: “ What do you think it will take for art-based platforms to regulate/condemn AI ‘art’ over profit?”

For a topic as gargantuan as artificial intelligence, it should come as no surprise that our conversation covered a lot of ground—from publishing industry scandals and algorithm-driven slop factories to the ineffable, untouchable thing that separates manmade art from clunker junk. While it’s clear that regulating AI is somewhat out of the question (thanks, capitalism), that doesn’t change the fact that protecting what makes art quintessentially human is important.

Don’t worry, we also made plenty of time to debate the Alien movies and gush over Jeff

Have a follow-up question about AI? Send us an email at tertpod@gmail.com and fill out our Google Form and we promise (we really do!) to answer in a future episode. We want to hear from you!

Assigned Reading

• Watch The Drey Dossier’s recent YouTube episode on “The Shy Girl AI Scandal Is Way Worse Than You Think” here.
• Read Nabeel S. Qureshi’s Substack, “What Makes Art Great?” here.

Further Reading

• Read Walter Benjamin’s essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” here.
• Read Britannica’s summarization of Machiavelli’s contributions to historiography here.
• Read Jay Caspian Kang’s article for The New Yorker, “Will A.I. Make College Obsolete?” here.
• Listen to The Grey Area’s podcast discussing “Machiavelli on how democracies die,” here.

Our intro and outro music comes from “Cloud Dancer” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0.

The rightwing techno-elites are trying to hijack your dreams—and the only way to stop them is to listen to Tertiary’s latest episode! In a spiritual successor to our series on “Speculative Creatures,” your hosts Heaven-Leigh and Justin picked up where EP6: Eugenics, Fatalism, “The Last Messiah” left off to dissect the ways both the political “left” and “right” imagine humanity’s future. As these competing visions become increasingly detached from reality, we’ve done our best to bring the conversation back down to earth.

Don’t worry, we also found time to touch on werewolves and queer culture, zombie movies and paranoia, and—most importantly—social media bans for minors.

Want to be a part of the Tertiary community? Follow us on Instagram, send us an email at tertpod@gmail.com and fill out our Google Form to submit a question that we’ll answer in a future episode. We want to hear from you!

Assigned Reading

• Buy Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle on Bookshop here or watch “The Man in the High Castle” on Netflix.
• Read Slavoj Žižek’s Substack on “SINNERS: CLASS STRUGGLE, BLUES AND VAMPIRES” here.

Further Reading

• Listen to The Last Podcast on the Left’s series on Jimmy Savile here.
• Read Tiffany Hsu’s NYT article, “Hundreds of Fake Pro-Trump Avatars Emerge on Social Media,” here.
• Watch “Hegseth defends Iran War's mission, costs” on FOX 32 Chicago here.
• Read Dana Goldstein’s NYT article, “Did School Cellphone Bans Work? New Study Finds Mixed Results,” here.
• Read Justin’s Substack on “TikTok, Hypnopedia, and the Zombification of the Public” here.

Our intro and outro music comes from “Cloud Dancer” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0.

“The city is the necessary instrument for the evolution of humankind.” —Paolo Soleri

You’ve heard of architecture, you’ve heard of ecology … but what happens when you smoosh those words together? You get “arcology,” a concept coined by Italian-American architect Paolo Soleri, out of which sprouted his ongoing experimental town in central Arizona called “Acrosanti.” Earlier this year, your #1 Tertiary host (Heaven-Leigh, obviously) paid said town a visit and brought a fistful of questions and ideas home with her.

For this week’s Sidequest, Justin and Heaven-Leigh finally tackle the topic they’re both secretly obsessed with: Urban design. What would it look like to build a city around the natural environment? What happens when your relationship to “work” becomes less about making money and more about building community? We get into it—and we can’t wait to hear what you think about all of it.

Follow us on Instagram, send us an email at tertpod@gmail.com or fill out our Google Form to submit a question that we’ll answer in a future episode. We want to hear from you!

Assigned Reading:

• Explore the Acrosanti project’s website (here)
• Read Paolo Soleri’s “Arcology Concept” (here)

Our intro and outro music comes from “Cloud Dancer” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0.

There is a sense of despair in the air, driven by war, genocide, fascism, climate change, and so on. As tempting as it may be to throw up your hands, the real question is: How does resignation actually serve us? What should we be doing instead?

This week, your Tertiary hosts tackle issues ranging from fatalism, tribalism, tolerance vs. intolerance, and—most importantly—community building at the end of the world. Believe it or not, this episode isn’t all doom and gloom: It’s Turkey Burger’s birthday, Spring is officially here, and we’re excited both to celebrate and problem-solve with you.

Want to be a part of the Tertiary community? Follow us on Instagram, send us an email at tertpod@gmail.com or fill out our Google Form to submit a question that we’ll answer in a future episode. We want to hear from you!

Assigned Reading:

• “The Last Messiah” (Janus, 1933), by Peter Wessel Zapffe (read it here)
• “Eugenics” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) (read the definition here)

Further Reading:

• “Peter Wessel Zapffe” (Medium, 2017), by OJ (read it here)
• “Toilet Architecture: An Essay About The Most Psychosexually Charged Room in a Building” (PIN–UP, 2017/2018), by Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley (read it here)

Our intro and outro music comes from “Cloud Dancer” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0.

Identity politics are more contentious, today, than ever. As the cultural tug-o-war wages on, your Tertiary hosts Heaven-Leigh and Justin take a step back to examine the ways race, gender, and sex politics overlap and interact. Leaning on Kimberlé Crenshaw’s pivotal text defining “Intersectionality,” we touch on everything from white fragility and representation in media to current events like BLM and ICE protests, for your listening pleasure.

Want to be a part of the Tertiary community? Follow us on Instagram, send us an email at tertpod@gmail.com or fill out our Google Form to submit a question that we’ll answer in a future episode. We want to hear from you!

Our intro and outro music comes from “Cloud Dancer” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0.

Assigned Reading:

• “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics,” (University of Chicago Legal Form) by Kimberlé Crenshaw (read it here)
• “Kimberlé Crenshaw on Intersectionality More Than Two Decades Later,” (Columbia Law School) interview (read it here)
• “‘2020 Never Ended:’ How Black Lives Matter Organizers Taught Minneapolis to Handle ICE Surge,” (The Guardian) by Alyssa Oursler (read it here)

In one of Tertiary’s rowdiest episodes yet, co-hosts Heaven-Leigh and Justin explore the politics of the American family unit—namely, the complicated culture of adoption in the United States. Beginning with Heaven-Leigh’s personal experience as an adoptee, we touch on everything from America’s hazy history of cultural anesthetization (both vis-à-vis transracial adoption and American Indian boarding schools) to Plato’s orgiastic vision for communal child rearing.

In the outtakes, Heaven-Leigh and Justin rehash the reality T.V. debate for a third and final time (I swear we’re done) and broach the subject of Hello Kitty’s perplexing biography… apparently, she’s not a cat? So says the internet? Jury’s still out.

In typical Tertiary fashion, we ask more questions than we answer, but the team is eager to hear your feedback, so send us an email at tertpod@gmail.com or fill out our Google Form and let us know what you think. We want to hear from you!

Assigned Reading:

• Choosing Ethnicity, Negotiating Race: Korean Adoptees in America (Russell Sage Foundation, 2012), by Mia Tuan and Jiannbin Lee Shiao (find it here)
• Everyday Utopia: What 2,000 Years of Bold Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life (Simon & Shuster, 2024), by Kristen R. Ghodsee (find it here), chapter 3 (“Kids as Public Goods”) and chapter 7 (“You and Me and Baby Makes Misery”)
• “Interesting Times with Ross Douthat” (NY Times) (listen here)

Further Reading / Watching

The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks; What do Women Want by Daniel Bergner; Hello Kitty is a Little Girl?? (watch here)

Our intro and outro music comes from “Cloud Dancer” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0.

It’s dreary out there, folks. Not just because Punxsutawney Phil cursed us with six more weeks of winter, either—the world has become a particularly dark place over the past few weeks.

With that in mind, this week Tertiary hosts Heaven-Leigh and Justin crack a window to let in a little fresh air and tackle questions like: How can art be a survival tool? What does speculative fiction have to teach us, not only about enduring difficult times but imagining better worlds? Winding their way through examples of dystopian action thrillers, post-apocalyptic survival films and bingeable zombie series, this episode considers the open question of humanity’s survival from a bird’s eye view.

Speaking of birds, Justin and Heaven-Leigh also find time to settle the Pigeon versus Crow debate, speculate whether the Last Supper was the first murder mystery, and—as appears to be a recurring topic—discuss the importance of reality TV, “white noise” television, and other forms of mindless entertainment.

Want to be a part of the Tertiary community? Follow us on Instagram, send us an email at tertpod@gmail.com or fill out our Google Form to submit a question that we’ll answer in a future episode. We want to hear from you!

Assigned Reading

• The Left Hand of Darkness, 50th Anniversary Edition (Ace, 1987), by Ursula K Le Guin, “Author’s Note” (find the edition referenced here)
• The Road (Vintage, 2007), by Cormac McCarthy (find it here)
• “Doomsday Preppers and the Architecture of Dread” (Geoforum, December 2021), by Bradley Garrett (read it here)

Further Reading / Watching

The Once and Future King by T. H. White; Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements edited by Adrienne Maree Brown and Walidah Imarisha; The Road, narrated by Tom Stechschulte, and the film; Tales from Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin; Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler; Solaris by Stanisław Lem.

And as promised, ”A Bird Hit My Window and Now I’m a Lesbian.”

Our intro and outro music comes from “Cloud Dancer” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0.