The Renewed Popularity of Chess and The Queen’s Gambit: Pretty Much Pop Culture Podcast Discussion #78 with Chess Expert J.J. Lang

The high lev­el of inter­est in Net­flix’s adap­ta­tion of the 1984 Wal­ter Tevis nov­el, The Queen’s Gam­bit has brought this most pop­u­lar game back to the fore­front of pop cul­ture. Chess expert/teacher J.J. (who’s also a grad stu­dent in phi­los­o­phy) joins your hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt to con­sid­er chess cul­ture, what gives this game its edge on oth­er con­tenders (why not Ter­ra Mys­ti­ca?), play­er per­son­al­i­ty char­ac­ter­is­tics, and the effect of chess media.

We con­sid­er gen­der, genius, and oth­er issues in Gam­bit, plus Pawn Sac­ri­fice, Search­ing for Bob­by Fish­er, The Luzhin Defense, and The Cold­est Game.

A few arti­cles and lists:

• “Five Myths About Chess” by Jen­nifer Sha­hade
• “Queen’s Gam­bit Beau­ty Debate Explained” by Con­stance Grady
• “The Fatal Flaw of the Queen’s Gam­bit” by Sarah Miller
• “16 Things You Prob­a­bly Didn’t Know About ‘The Queen’s Gam­bit’” by Jana­ki Jitchotvi­sut
• “10 Essen­tial Movies About Chess” by Tim Gri­er­son
• “10 Movies to Watch About Chess if You Liked Netflix’s The Queen’s Gam­bit” by Jake Dee
• “‘Genius’: 10 Films That Explore the Bril­liant Mind” by Kat Som­mers

Watch J.J. on stream on Twitch. Oth­er inter­views he’s done: Per­pet­u­al Chess, Friends and Ene­mies, Aakaash

Hear more of this pod­cast at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion about more chess films and oth­er top­ics that you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.