Los Altos Institute Archive

We discuss the last two storylines of season twenty-six, the final season of the original series and discuss ways that it sets up the new plotting structures, nomenclature and companion dynamics of the new series. We also examine the cosmology of the show and its theory of evil.

This class begins with a short lecture on the Doctor Who's most socialist episode and the sophistication of its anti-capitalist analysis. Discussion is dominated by an informed debate about the anti-Semitism of the show and its relationship to the Callahan government of the late 1970s.

We discuss the zenith of the golden age of Doctor Who and the tribute paid to Walter Benjamin's essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"

This lecture focuses on Xoanon, the Doctor's adversary in this episode, a computer named after the primary idol of the pre-Christian Goths that appears to suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

The class focuses on epistemological themes such as the Kabala-influenced idea of Logopolis, ideas of knowledge as social construction, popular theory discourse before the Sokal Hoax and Shardovan as epistemological hero.