Nostalgia Trap

Latest Episodes:

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 125: A Dark Inheritance w/ Brooke Newman Nov 27, 2018

Show notes

Brooke Newman is a professor of history at Virginia Commonwealth University and the author of A Dark Inheritance: Blood, Race, and Sex in Colonial Jamaica, a book that traces the evolution of racial definitions and sexual practices in one of 18th century Britain's most valuable colonies. In this conversation, Newman discusses how notions of race and nation interacted with sex, gender, and class in often surprising ways during a brutal imperial occupation, and explains how Jamaica's particular history reveals the deep, pathological contradictions at the heart of the Atlantic slave system.

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 124: They Don't Care About You w/ Justin Rogers-Cooper TEASER Nov 19, 2018

Show notes

TEASER: On this week's bonus episode, Justin Rogers-Cooper joins us to talk about the structural connections between California wildfires and a recent spate of mass shootings, understanding them as part of how corporations from energy to guns socialize losses while privatizing profits. We also deconstruct the Tucker Carlson media outrage in the context of capitalism's increasing encroachment into supposed "sacred spaces" like the American home. Subscribe to listen!

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 123: When the Bough Breaks w/ Daegan Miller Nov 13, 2018

Show notes

Daegan Miller is a writer whose recent book, This Radical Land: A Natural History of American Dissent, presents an intellectual history of how different Americans have resisted capitalism's ravaging of the natural environment. From black antislavery radicals in the Adirondack wilderness of upstate New York to utopian anarchists in California's sequoias, Miller's narrative reveals a throughline of alternate visions running underneath the nation's history. In this conversation, Miller tells how his personal connection to the land influenced his work as an environmental historian, explains how the disappointments of the academic labor market are connected to the wider alienation of 21st century American life, and offers his own eco-socialist vision of a kinder, gentler future.

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 122: Dunder Mifflin Nation w/ Justin Rogers-Cooper Nov 06, 2018

Show notes

Justin Rogers-Cooper returns to the Nostalgia Trap to break down the political and social significance of NBC's The Office, positioning the show within the larger context of 21st century neoliberal capitalism. How does the evolving sitcom form reflect changing attitudes about labor, patriarchy, and other structures of oppression? And what does it mean for the future of work?

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 121: Socialism and the Climate Crisis w/ Kate Aronoff Oct 31, 2018

Show notes

Kate Aronoff is a writer whose work appears in The Intercept, Dissent, In These Times, and a number of other fine left publications. In this conversation, we talk about the media's framing of the recent IPCC report's dire prognosis for the planet, the pitfalls of climate nihilism, and the politics of saving the world.

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 120: Fighting the Bad Future w/ Malcolm Harris Oct 24, 2018

Show notes

Malcolm Harris is a freelance writer and the author of Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials, a book that explores how the structure of American society is rigged against young people. Despite the stereotype of apathetic, entitled youth wasting away in their parents' basements, Harris shows us a generation locked in by the horrific social, economic, and cultural realities of the 21st century—and offers a blueprint for how young folks can join the fight for a better world.

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 119: Imperialism is Over If You Want It w/ Daniel Bessner Oct 16, 2018

Show notes

Daniel Bessner is a historian with a particular focus on American foreign policy. His book Democracy in Exile: Hans Speier and the Rise of the Defense Intellectual mixes biography with a striking analysis of Cold War policy-making. In this conversation, Bessner expands on the ideas he presented in a recent New York Times op-ed, in which he argues that the left needs a more focused and practical pathway to dismantling the American imperial project and drawing down the endless wars that have decimated globe for decades.

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 118: Civil Unrest w/ Nathan J Robinson Oct 10, 2018

Show notes

Nathan J. Robinson is the creator and editor-in-chief of Current Affairs, one of the left's most consistently valuable and readable publications. In this conversation, Robinson talks about honing his skills at political argument in the high school debate club, explains how a British accent can be an asset in American media, and describes his vision for the future of Current Affairs and the larger left movement.

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 117: The Decline and Fall of American Cinema w/ Eileen Jones Sep 26, 2018

Show notes

Eileen Jones is a film critic and professor whose biting, polemical movie reviews are featured in Jacobin and a number of other publications. Her recent book Filmsuck, USA investigates the persistently horrific state of American cinema, while outlining Jones' vision of a liberatory movie culture that honors the medium's working class roots. In this conversation, she explains how her early experiences watching Hollywood genre films influenced her ideas about movies, why the Coen brothers are her preferred auteurs, and why she thinks the language of cinema can play such a vital role in challenging the organizing principles of capitalism.

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 116: The Southernization of Everything w/ Keri Leigh Merritt Sep 17, 2018

Show notes

Keri Leigh Merritt is a historian of American class, race, and inequality, with a particular focus on the South during and after the Civil War. Her book Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South deftly navigates discourses on race, power, and capitalism, telling us what happens to "excess labor" under a slave economy. In this conversation, she talks about the South's influence on her direction as a scholar, and explains how vital elements of the Southern political economy (from "right to work" to convict leasing) have spread to the rest of the country.

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