Best Finds!: Recommendations

Best Finds! Recommendations by Tatyana Dimitrova

In my first two years of Arts and Culture Studies, I have collected a handful of media works that have been very helpful for me to digest the information of the courses and give inspiration for writing topics, but also easy to enjoy and take your mind off of the study workload which also cover a bunch of topics. Here they are! Podcasts

Philosophise This! Philosophise This! is a free podcast dedicated to sharing the ideas that shaped our world. It is beginner friendly (if listened to in order or not)! It is perfect for anyone interested in educational podcasts about philosophy, where you don’t need to be a graduatelevel philosopher to understand it. In chronological order, the thinkers and ideas that forged the world we live in are broken down and explained, which perfectly applied to courses such as Cultural Theory in year one of ACS and later Culture Through Philosophy. And who knows! Maybe you will find it useful for other courses as well! At the beginning, these theories are hard to take a grasp of, but I believe that all education should be free and accessible and this is exactly what Philosophise This! does. Stuff You Should Know If you’ve ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks and many more topics, which normally would never cross your mind, then look no further. The hosts of Stuff You Should Know Josh and Chuck have you covered. Each episode, the podcasters have a conversation about the given topic and, by the end, the listeners have a basic working knowledge of that subject. They are on a never ending quest to explain absolutely everything there is on planet earth and beyond.

Love Your Bod Podcast The Love Your Bod Podcast is all about intuitive eating, female empowerment, body acceptance and saying goodbye to diet culture. Cara Carin Cifelli, your host, is a holistic health coach, author, speaker, online course creator, and avocado toast lover! Of course, this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and does not substitute individual medical or mental health advice, but it is of great help to improve your self-confidence and accept your body in all its greatness and glory. We all need positivity in our lives to learn how to love ourselves! In addition to that, it helps you understand the way society works and how it has unconsciously internalised in us harmful behaviours. Hopefully, after that, you will be able to break away by all these toxic habits and work towards dismantling them!

Drawn: The Story of Animation Are you a cartoon lover like myself? Great! Then I have just the perfect podcast for you! The host Holly Frey of Drawn: The Story of Animation breaks down the history of animation into 13 episodes in an exploration of cartoons with an insider’s perspective, including show creators, voice actors, historians, animators and business leaders. A collaboration between Cartoon Network and HowStuffWorks which tells you how your favorite cartoons are made!

Instagram Accounts

FLOSS (@florencegiven) Florence Given is a UK based artist and bestselling author of Women Don’t Owe You Pretty. The British feminist queer illustrator and social activist is known for her popular slogan designs which address social issues surrounding sexuality, gender and race. An accessible introduction to feminism, her bright colours and retro fonts make for some highly Instagrammable #content, but it is the feminist messages behind them that are getting people talking. Given aims to empower women to embrace their sexuality and speak out against toxic patriarchal ideals, such as slut-shaming.”I want to encourage women to question the world that they were born into. I want them to find their power and realise that they should never settle for less than they deserve.” - Florence Given for The Independent. 7

YouTube

Kristen Leo Kristen Leotsakou is a Greek is vegan and ethical living YouTuber who showcases her way of living on YouTube to share how anyone can help animals, fellow humans and the earth. She makes informative video essay analyses on topics such as fast fashion, make-up, travelling, privilege and gives alternative suggestions on how we can decrease our impact on the planet. Do you want to become a part of the movement for making the planet a better and kinder place to live? Then Kristen’s channel is the perfect place to start from!

Tiffany Ferguson Tiffany is a versatile YouTuber mostly well-known for her commentary videos in her “Internet Analysis” series, where she researches and discusses media trends and social topics. She gives insight into areas of society, which are not usually questioned and argues why they should, in fact, be questioned.

The Art Assignment The Art Assignment is a webseries focused on contemporary art. It is hosted by Sarah Urist Green who used to be a curator of contemporary art for the Indianapolis Museum of Art. After all, you are going to be an ARTS and Culture Student, right? So before learning the cultural theories, you will need to know some knowledge in art history too. The Art Assignment YouTube channel is the perfect place to broaden your horizon in addition to the information gained during the History of the Western Arts lectures and seminars and find that inspiration that you so desperately might need in order to write the disciplinary and interdisciplinary essays.

Craig of the Creek Did you absolutely love Steven Universe and terribly miss it now that it is over? From its creators Matt Burnett and Ben Levin, I present to you Craig of the Creek! In the fictional suburban town of Herkleston, a boy named Craig Williams and his two friends, Kelsey Pokoly and John Paul “J.P.” Mercer, have their many adventures in the titular creek, described as a kid utopia of untamed wilderness, in which tribes of children reign over tree forts and dirt bike ramps. Not only is it fun, enjoyable and relaxing to watch, but it is full of LGBTQ+ representations and racial diversity, with Graig, the protagonist, being a Black kid. That’s right, the white person is no longer the centre of the universe! Not to mention how soothing and comforting the end credits of each episode: a literal bliss contained in 32 seconds!

Pinky Malinky Pinky Malinky marks the first collaboration between Nickelodeon and Netflix. The series chronicles the adventures of Pinky Malinky, a 12-yearold middle school student who also happens to be an anthropomorphic hot dog and his efforts to climb up the social ladder with his two human friends Babs Byuteman and JJ Jameson. The format of the cartoon is a fly-on-the wall reality show and I personally like to classify it as mockumentary as well. Are you curious to find out the story behind Pinky’s unusual hot dog origins? Then find a comfortable place, make sure all stressful thoughts are put aside and enjoy the series! Films

A Whisker Away Perhaps you are (also) an anime fan? Perhaps you have already heard about A Whisker Away? Well, in case you haven’t, here I am telling you about it! This film was released in June this year on Netflix and holds an approval rating of 92% based on 13 reviews, with an average rating of 7.78/10 on Rotten Tomatoes. And why would it not? Humans turning into cats? Doesn’t that sound like the most relaxing heavenly thing? Well, it turns out not really. Miyo Sasaki is in love with her classmate Kento Hinode and tries repeatedly to get his attention by transforming into a cat, but at some point, the boundary between herself and the cat becomes ambiguous. Sounds angsty, right? Did I stir up your interest? I do not want to spoil anymore, so lastly I will add that the soundtrack is just as good as the film itself.

Okja Perhaps you are not a fan of animation? Don’t worry, I got you covered! Okja is an actionadventure film about a girl who raises a genetically modified superpig, directed by Bong Joon-ho the creator of masterpieces such as Parasite and Snowpiercer. As it can be expected, this film is also concerned with the themes of environmentalism, class privilege and the moral issues of capitalism. And if you do not wish to get that deep, you can just enjoy the heartfelt bond between the young girl from South Korea Mija and the super pig Okja, while she tries to save it back after it is stolen and led towards a slaughterhouse.

TV Series

Never Have I Ever Never Have I Ever is an American coming of age comedy-drama on Netflix created by Mindy Kaling, whose parents are from India. The comedy is partially based on Kaling’s real childhood story, growing up in the Boston area. The story centers around Devi Vishwakumar, a 15-yearold girl from Sherman Oaks, California. After a horrible freshman year, Devi wants to change her social status, but friends, family, and feelings do not make it easy for her. As the series follows her highs and lows, it has been described as a watershed moment for South Asian representation in Hollywood and has been praised for breaking Asian stereotypes.

Kim’s Convenience Here’s another find which introduces racial diversity. Kim’s Convenience is a Canadian television sitcom on Netflix which depicts the Korean Canadian Kim family that runs a convenience store in the Moss Park neighbourhood of Toronto. The show stays away from the pseudoseriousness that could easily plague a comedy about immigrants and family dynamics. The dialogue is sharp, on point and borderline subversive. It’s funny and true, but not a reality we typically see reflected on television.

Books

10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak This is a book I finished in two days after the wifi at my house had inexplicably stopped working and I was waiting for someone to come fix it. I do not regret one bit of it though! Ten minutes and thirty-eight seconds, the time it takes for a kettle to boil. It is believed that for that amount of time the human brain continues working after the heart has stopped. For Leila, each minute after her death brings a sensuous memory: the taste of spiced goat stew; the sight of bubbling vats of lemon and sugar; the scent of cardamom coffee. Each memory recalls the friends she made at each key moment in her life. Elif Shafak is a Turkish feminist author who writes about the sexual violence towards women in her country. This last novel of hers with humanising narrative is yet another push for the Turkish government to decide to investigate her. Shafak takes a piercing, unflinching look at the trauma women’s minds and bodies are subjected to in a social system defined by patriarchal codes. It’s a brutal book, bleak and relentless in its portrayal of violence, heartbreak and grief, but ultimately life-affirming. 11