Nostalgia Trap

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Nostalgia Trap - Episode 33: Moustafa Bayoumi Dec 10, 2014

Show notes

Moustafa Bayoumi is an associate professor of English at Brooklyn College and the author of How Does it Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America (2009). In this conversation, we talk about his graduate years working with Edward Said; his development as a scholar of postcolonial literature and theory; his extraordinary article "Disco Inferno," which chronicles the use of American popular music in the torture of (mostly Arab) detainees; and the particular cultural, political, and economic elements of the Arab-American and Muslim experience in post-9/11 America.

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 32: Will Menaker Dec 03, 2014

Show notes

Will Menaker is an editor at Liveright Publishing, who recently put out Jacob Bacharach's debut novel, The Bend of the World. I've known Will since graduate school, where we shared a common love for The Onion, The Sopranos, and the weird ideological currents flowing through American popular culture. In this episode, we talk about his socialist ancestors, who opened cooperative factories in the United States, and how utopian fantasy and apocalyptic nightmares intersect with real politics.

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 31: CUNY Students and Climate Change Nov 26, 2014

Show notes

Although the popular stereotype of "kids these days" has them staring apathetically at their phones, more concerned with selfies than politics, my experiences with young people at CUNY often give the lie to that idea. After a semester spent reading and writing about climate change, the students in Justin Rogers-Cooper's English 101 course at LaGuardia Community College were heavily engaged, and more than ready to share their thoughts. I sat down with the class and listened to harrowing stories about Hurricane Sandy, ideas for shifting the political conversation about climate change, and their fears and hopes for the future of life on planet Earth.

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 30: Claudia Moreno Parsons Nov 19, 2014

Show notes

Claudia Moreno Parsons is a professor of English at LaGuardia Community College, and also the wife of your humble host. Since I've spoken to so many guests about the different people that made an impact on their lives, I thought that, for the podcast's 30th episode, it would be appropriate to speak with someone who's had a profound impact on my life. Claudia talks with me about her childhood in South Brooklyn, how books came to be so important to her, and how working with Ammiel Alcalay at the CUNY Graduate Center helped give shape to her work while fueling her intellectual imagination.

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 29: Josh Mason Nov 12, 2014

Show notes

Currently a professor in the Economics department at John Jay College in New York City, Josh Mason is one of only a few economists that I know in real life, so it was great to have the opportunity to pick his brain about details we historians often tend to overlook. We talked about his background in left journalism, his work with major labor unions, the direction of U.S. labor politics, and the curious but perhaps understandable academic preoccupation with organic farming.

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 28: Neil Meyer Nov 05, 2014

Show notes

I've known English professor Neil Meyer for many years, since our time spent concurrently at the CUNY Graduate Center, which spanned more or less the entire Bush and early Obama eras. I never knew Neil was from Detroit before this conversation, and the discovery allowed us an entryway into a wide range of historical and political phenomenon. We talked about his work in early American literature, his thoughts on gay marriage, abortion, and other pieces of the so-called "culture war," and of course, our mutual concern about James Franco's graduate studies.

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 27: Jayashree Kamble Oct 29, 2014

Show notes

My conversation with Jayashree Kamble, a writer and English professor at LaGuardia Community College, was an opportunity to talk about popular culture, an intense and rich subject of study that, at least in my experience, is often met with some resistance in graduate history departments. Jayashree discusses her early education in India, how she decided to move to Minnesota for graduate school, and all about the main focus of her work studying popular romance fiction. What do those books and other pieces of media have to tell us about race, politics, identity, and ideology? Jayashree's answers to these questions gave me a mind-blowing glimpse into the profound ways that popular culture can function in our lives.

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 26: Sarah Jaffe Oct 22, 2014

Show notes

Sarah Jaffe is a freelance writer and journalist whose work appears in The Guardian, In These Times, Salon, and Dissent Magazine, where she co-hosts the Belabored Podcast. We had a fun conversation about 90s culture, the paradox of loving the NFL, Beyoncé's feminist status, Ferguson's continued uprising, the state of higher education and, of course, the biographical details of how "punk rock and shitty jobs" helped lead her to a life of left journalism.

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 25: Steve Brier Oct 15, 2014

Show notes

Steve Brier is a historian whose work at the American Social History Project helped draw me into the field of working class social history. Steve also has some amazing stories about his father's time fighting fascists on the streets of East London in the lead-up to World War II, his time spent at Berkeley in the middle of the Free Speech Movement in 1964, and his work and friendship with legendary social historian Herbert Gutman.

Nostalgia Trap - Episode 24: Sarah Leonard Oct 08, 2014

Show notes

Sarah Leonard is an exciting voice in left journalism, currently working as a writer and editor for The Nation, New Inquiry, and Dissent. She writes about stuff that matters: mass incarceration, feminism, the evolution of media and technology, and much more. We talked about her experiences working around figures from the Democratic Party, her take on Occupy's past and future, and the limits of identity-driven politics in the context of Hillary Clinton's inevitable 2016 run.

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