MEANING — footnote episodes — Fantasy/Animation

Footnote #76 - Performativity

Performativity gets the Fantasy/Animation treatment in Footnote 76 of the podcast, with Alex taking Chris through the power and implication of language, utterances, meaning, and those writers who have thought about how we do things with words. Topics include how language is essential to the creation of meaning in the world and the emergence of ordinary language philosophy; performative registers, speech acts, and the work of Judith Butler on gendered forms of performativity; fictions, falsehoods, and the societal function of performing gender; and the meaningfulness of utterances that create meaning by doing rather than simply describing.

FOOTNOTE PODCASTChristopher Holliday and Alexander SergeantMarch 30, 2026MEANING, GENDER, PERFORMANCE, PERFORMATIVITYComment

Footnote #75 - Identification

Chris and Alex reflect on the question of identification in this latest Footnote episode of the podcast, drawing out what it means to identify (or not) with characters as both fictional agents and a set of archetypes.

FOOTNOTE PODCASTChristopher Holliday and Alexander SergeantMarch 16, 2026MEANING, CHARACTER, NARRATIVE, SUBJECTIVITYComment

Footnote #74 - Deconstructivism

Following the recent podcast episode on Space Ghost Coast to Coast (Mike Lazzo, 1994-2008), Alex takes the reins for Fantasy/Animation Footnote 74, taking Chris through Jacques Derrida and deconstructivism as a philosophical doctrine, which embraces a way of interpretive thinking that is loosely tasked with exposing the lack of meaning within meaning itself and pushing against the clear resolution of a thesis.