Nostalgia Trap

Latest Episodes:

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 279: Just One More Pod w/ Bill Black (PREVIEW) Jun 22, 2021

Show notes

The kids are crazy for Columbo! This week our friend Bill Black drops by to talk about the long-running detective show starring Peter Falk that's seen an unlikely resurgence in the COVID era. From its weird class dynamics and parade of villainous guest stars to Falk's truly iconic performance, we explore what makes Columbo's stories, characters, and rhythms so different from the binge-watchable content of the digital era, and try to wrap our minds around its sudden popularity among a new generation. To listen to the whole episode, subscribe at patreon.com/nostalgiatrap.

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 280: Hearts of Darkness w/ Allan Cooper Jun 22, 2021

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Allan Cooper is a professor of political science at North Carolina Central University. He joins us to discuss his latest book, Africa and the Global System of Capital Accumulation, which describes the strategic role Africa plays in the global capitalist economy, where exploitation of labor and resources sustains the world's middle class and consolidates state authority. In this conversation, we explore the role consumer desire for products like chocolate, diamonds, and cell phones plays in that larger chain of racism and imperialism, and trace how neoliberalism creates a culture that skillfully obscures its ravaging of the planet.

Nostalgia Trap - NAM-TV - S1 E3: Never Heard the Word Impossible (PREVIEW) Jun 09, 2021

Show notes

On this week's episode of NAM-TV, we continue our story with a look at the First Indochina War (1946-1954), in which France attempted to reconquer Vietnam by fighting the Viet Minh, Ho Chi Minh's increasingly powerful revolutionary movement. With the United States secretly funding the French side, and the rest of the world more or less staying out of it, the war culminates (spoiler alert!) in a stunning victory for the Viet Minh at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. How did the Viet Minh achieve this "impossible" feat? And what will be the terms of their victory? For full episode subscribe at patreon.com/nostalgiatrap.

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 278: Love's Next Meeting w/ Aaron Lecklider Jun 07, 2021

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Aaron Lecklider is a professor of American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston and the author of Love's Next Meeting: The Forgotten History of Homosexuality and the Left in American Culture. In this conversation, we talk about the intersection of sexuality and radical politics in the pre-Stonewall era, from 1920-1960, as we explore queer liberation's complicated place in the history of the American left.

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 277: Working Girls w/ Claudia Moreno Parsons (PREVIEW) Jun 02, 2021

Show notes

This week Claudia and I continue our movie series with two 1980s Hollywood comedies about the lives of working class women, Pretty in Pink (1986) and Working Girl (1988). Our conversation explores how each film reflects a pre-"Lean In" pop feminism, with central characters that seek class mobility and romantic independence in the context of a vapid, wealth-obsessed 1980s culture. Subscribe for full episode: patreon.com/nostalgiatrap.

Nostalgia Trap - NAM-TV - S1 E2: Lose Yourself (PREVIEW) May 29, 2021

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Here's a quick look at Episode 2 of NAM-TV, our new video lecture series on the Vietnam War and American historical memory. Available now for subscribers at patreon.com/nostalgiatrap, with new episodes dropping regularly throughout the summer.

Nostalgia Trap - Livestream 5.27.2021: War Pigs w/ Justin Rogers-Cooper (PREVIEW) May 28, 2021

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A quick clip from this week's livestream with Justin Rogers-Cooper providing some historical context and analysis to ongoing horrors in Ethiopia, Myanmar, Colombia, and Belarus. Subscribe for the full episode: patreon.com/nostalgiatrap.

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 276: Neighborhood of Fear w/ Kyle Riismandel May 24, 2021

Show notes

Kyle Riismandel teaches American history at the New Jersey Institute of Technology/Rutgers-Newark, and is the author of Neighborhood of Fear: The Suburban Crisis in American Culture, 1975-2001. He joins us to explain how fear became an organizing ideological principle of the American suburbs in the post-Vietnam era, as hysteria about crime, sexual deviance, drugs, and Satan himself drove suburbanites to an obsession with security, surveillance, and policing that continues to haunt the American landscape.

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 275: The Murder is the Message w/ Danny Bessner (PREVIEW) May 21, 2021

Show notes

This week we talk about the political and social economy of "first person shooter" video games with Danny Bessner, whose recent piece in The Drift investigates the deep cultural contradictions at play in the enormously popular Call of Duty franchise. With armies of alienated young men casting themselves as protagonists in deeply distorted narratives of 20th century history, we explore the lines between harmless entertainment, violent brainwashing, and military propaganda. For full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/nostalgiatrap.

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 274: The Defund Moment w/ Alex Vitale May 15, 2021

Show notes

Alex Vitale is a professor of sociology and Coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College. His 2017 book, The End of Policing, has received significant attention in the wake of the George Floyd protests and a wider public discourse about the history, ideology, and practice of American policing. In this conversation, Vitale explains how policing and incarceration became the state's primary mode of dealing with socio-economic problems created by neoliberal capitalism, from mass homelessness to mental illness, and how the defund/abolish movements have evolved a range of ideas and strategies to imagine a post-police world.

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