House of the Dragon (2021-) (with Kim Akass)

For Episode 112, Chris and Alex are joined for this discussion of HBO’s television series House of the Dragon (Ryan Condal & George R. R. Martin, 2021-) - the prequel to Game of Thrones (David Benioff & D. B. Weiss, 2011-2019) - by Professor Kim Akass, who is Professor of Radio, Television and Film at Rowan University, Glassboro. Kim is is one of the founding editors of the television journal Critical Studies in Television: The International Journal of Television Studies (SAGE), co-editor of the “Reading Contemporary Television Series” for I.B. Tauris, and managing editor of CSTonline. Listen as they work through world-building and storytelling within long-form televisual fantasy; the narrative function of the series’ array of digital dragons and VFX imagery; why fantasy and animation lend themselves to sprawling franchises and extended mythologies; histories of unruly femininity and its (false?) equivalence with madness, anger, and rage; and the many ways in which House of the Dragon asks what it means to be at war with your own body.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**