Speaker: Neil Verma, Associate Professor, Northwestern University
Moderator: Jean Ma, Mr. and Mrs. Hung Hing-Ying Professor in the Arts
Date: Wednesday, October 21, 2026
Time: 5:00 pm Hong Kong Time
Venue: CPD-1.24, The University of Hong Kong
Registration link: https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_hdetail.aspx?guest=Y&ueid=109987
All are welcome. Registration is required.
What does it mean to stand in obsessive relation to an object? What does it mean to narrate that relation mimetically? Drawing on research into hundreds of U.S. audio podcasts of the 2010s, this paper historicizes and theorizes the rise of obsession as a theme and method in a wide variety of true crime, audio drama and storytelling podcasts. Introducing methodologies of close listening as well as approaches to mapping obsessive relationships structurally, this talk also turns the question back on itself, asking what happens when, rather than demystifying obsession, a critic elects to embrace it.
Neil Verma is an associate professor at Northwestern University. Verma is an expert in the history of audio fiction. His books include Theater of the Mind: Imagination, Aesthetics, and American Radio Drama and Narrative Podcasting in an Age of Obsession. He has also co-edited Indian Sound Cultures, Indian Sound Citizenship, and Anatomy of Sound: Norman Corwin and Media Authorship. Verma has been a consultant for a variety of radio and film projects, including Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon (2023).
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