What does it mean to be a good companion to your pet? And should we have pets anyway? Heaven-Leigh and Justin, your favorite Tertiary co-hosts and animal lovers alike, discuss Ellie Violet Bramely’s “The Case Against Pets: Is it Time to Give Up Our Cats and Dogs?” Tune in as they chat all things pets and the responsibilities—not power—that come with companionship.

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.

Assigned Reading

• “The Case Against Pets: Is it Time to Give Up Our Cats and Dogs?” by Ellie Violet Bramely (read it here)
• “Fact Check: Were Pets Adopted During the Pandemic Returned in Large Numbers?” by Brianna Grant (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.

In his 2017 acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in literature, Kazuo Ishiguro said that stories “communicate feelings, that they appeal to what we share as human beings across our borders and divides.” We started this podcast because we believe sharing stories, making deep connections, and bridging divides all appear to be going out of style.

For this week’s episode, your favorite Tertiary hosts ask a few simple questions: Why are books important? What kinds of stories leave impressions on us? Why does that matter? We also shared some of our all-time favorite passages, writers and books with you. Find them below:

Heaven-Leigh’s Reading List

• “The Two-Headed Calf” by Laura Gilpen (read it here)
• I am Legend by Richard Matheson (get it here)

Justin’s Reading List

• The Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway (get it here)
• The Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald (get it here)

Julea’s Reading List

• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (get it here)
• Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke (get it here)

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.

Assigned Reading

• Listen to Kazuo Ishiguro’s Nobel Prize here.
• Find George Monbiot’s Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis here.
• Read @adamtots’ comic for “Two-Headed Calf” on Tumblr here.
• Find Pachinko by Min Jin Lee here.

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

The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards have come and gone, but we’re still glued to our TVs—“binge watching” is a year-round affair, after all. For this week’s podcast, your favorite Tertiary hosts Heaven-Leigh and Justin respond to Emily Kirkpatrick’s recent Substack, “Does TV Actually Suck Now?”

Whether or not you think TV sucks, we’re interested in what today’s lauded series can teach us about ourselves. We explore the golden age of “bad TV,” the emergence of the star-studded limited series, virtue signalling and representation, as well as the complex task of holding Gen Zers’ attention. Don’t worry, we also make plenty of pit stops along the way, unpacking the Ed Sheeran/Macklemore debacle and, of course, paying homage to “car people.”

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.

Assigned Reading

• Read “Does TV Actually Suck Now?” by Emily Kirkpatrick on Substack here.
• Read “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by Walter Benjamin, courtesy of MIT, here.
• Read “Home From College, 2 Weeks Later” by Paula Mejía on The New York Times here.

Assigned Watching

• “Avatar: the Last Airbender” (Netflix)
• “Bluey” (Disney+)
• “Firefly” (Hulu)

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