This week, I’m joined again by my friend Peter Paik, Professor at University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and at Yonsei University in Seoul, author of a book on pop-culture visions of radical political change that’s most timely: From Utopia To Apocalypse.

Peter and I talk about the comic books of Alan Moore, the main subject of his book: Watchmen, made into a movie by Zack Snyder and now about to become an HBO series; V for Vendetta, made into a movie by the Wachowskis, the Matrix creators; From Hell, made into a movie by the Hughes brothers, starring Johnny Depp; and Miracleman, a Cold-War-to-End-of-History story that has not yet been adapted.

We talk about these visions of radical political change and greatness wrought of great suffering, both idea anathema to End Of History liberalism, and hence why these stories don’t work so well in Hollywood. And we also talk about the significant changes in how we think about politics in just these first decades of the 21st century and why they are reflected so much more in pop culture than in public discourse or politics.

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