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ACFM Microdose: Notes on Camp Jun 09, 2024

Show notes

After investigating the politics of cool on the last Trip episode, the crew turn their attention to another distinctly modern sensibility: camp.

Digging into Susan Sontag’s formative 1964 essay on the camp aesthetic, Nadia, Keir and Jem think about how elements of the artificial, the theatrical and the sentimental come together in camp objects, from porn movies to Tiffany lamps to risqué radio comedy.

Find our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching “ACFM”.
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Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

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Downstream: Everything You’re Told About Green Capitalism is Wrong w/ Brett Christophers Jun 03, 2024

Show notes

Renewable energy technology is only getting cheaper. And yet it hasn’t increased its share of the energy mix for two decades.

So what explains this paradox: cheap green energy with incredibly slow adoption?

According to Brett Christophers, there is a straightforward explanation for this seeming paradox: the capitalist need for profits. And green energy projects are not as profitable as oil and gas.

So can capitalism address the climate crisis? Does the state need to play a decisive role? How is it possible that China is both a global leader and a laggard in greenhouse gas emissions? And is Europe over?

You can buy Brett’s book, “The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won’t Save the Planet” here.

Novara FM: The Right Is Getting Real On Climate. Can We? w/ Ajay Singh Chaudhary May 30, 2024

Show notes

The right have ditched climate denial and found something worse. They’re doubling down on the exhaustion of people and planet alike, making us run ever-faster just to stay in place. Can we turn our collective exhaustion into a climate politics of rest and recuperation?

That’s the urgent question Ajay Singh Chaudhary asks in The Exhausted of the Earth: Politics in a Burning World. He tells Richard Hames about the strange new alliances forged by climate change, what we can learn from global peasant struggles, and the possibilities buried in a world coming apart at the seams.

Novara FM now has its own inbox. Email us with comments, criticisms and suggestions: fm@novaramedia.com

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Downstream: Is India Really a Democracy? w/ Alpa Shah May 27, 2024

Show notes

The Indian election will be one of the largest the world has ever seen, with almost 1 billion people eligible to vote. It’s often said that India is the world’s biggest democracy. But what if that isn’t quite true? What if Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister for the last decade, has undermined the very building blocks of what we consider a democratic state to be?

To discuss the caste system, political assassinations and state-sanctioned pogroms, Aaron is joined by anthropologist Alpa Shah, author of ‘The Incarcerations: BK-16 and the Search for Democracy in India’.

ACFM Trip 43: Cool May 26, 2024

Show notes

What exactly is cool? Well, if it was that easy to describe, it obviously wouldn’t be cool. In this Trip, Keir, Jem and Nadia wonder if cool can ever be politically useful, and what happens when cool is used as a disciplining force.

With ideas from Pierre Bourdieu, Norman Mailer and Paul Gilroy, and music from OutKast, Gwen Stefani and Miles Davis, the gang adopt a blank expression to explore the mysterious rules of this singular modern concept.

Check out all the books and music mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm
Find our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching “ACFM”.
Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

Novara FM: How Trans Misogyny Works w/ Jules Gill-Peterson May 23, 2024

Show notes

The difference between sex and gender is fundamental to how we talk about trans people. But what if it obscures the richness of life outside of gender norms?

There is so much more to gender non-conforming people than this academic, middle-class, distinction – so says Jules Gill-Peterson, a historian at Johns Hopkins University and the author of A Short History of Trans Misogyny.

In conversation with Eleanor Penny, Gill-Peterson reaches back into the past to explain what it means to be a queen, why trans women do sex work, and how to reignite the celebration of femininity as a cornerstone of feminist politics.

Novara FM now has its own inbox. Email us with comments, criticisms and suggestions: fm@novaramedia.com

Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

Novara Live: Rishi Sunak Announces July General Election May 23, 2024

Show notes

In the pouring rain and 20 points behind in the polls, Rishi Sunak has announced that a UK general election will take place on 4 July. Michael Walker and Moya Lothian-McLean report.

Plus: Ireland, Spain and Norway have announced their intention to recognise Palestine as a state.

Follow our election coverage on Novara Live every weekday at 6pm on YouTube, and subscribe to the podcast by searching “Novara Live” in your app.

Downstream: The Truth About Incels w/ William Costello May 20, 2024

Show notes

The involuntary celibate community (aka ‘incels’) are often thought to be rightwing, white supremacist, and prone to violence. But how much of that is true? Ash Sarkar is joined by William Costello – a researcher whose work focuses on the psychology of incels – to discuss what we get wrong about incels, what incels get wrong about women, and the catastrophe that is modern dating culture.

Novara FM: Living Through the Chinese Miracle w/ Yuan Yang May 16, 2024

Show notes

No country has ever changed so fast as China. From the west, we see only the dazzling headline figures – 15% growth in some years. But it’s on the ground, in the huge shifts in the patterns of daily life, where the story comes alive.

Journalist Yuan Yang’s first book Private Revolutions provides just that insight, revealing the individual lives behind the increasing lines on the graphs. Born in China, Yang moved to the UK at the age of 4 but in 2016 returned to her home country to become deputy Beijing Bureau Chief for the Financial Times.

Now back in the UK, where she is running to become Labour’s MP for Earley and Woodley this year, she spoke to Richard Hames about how the disruptions of China’s recent history have set it on its present path and how the left’s love of China is misplaced.

Novara FM now has its own inbox. Email us with comments, criticisms and suggestions: fm@novaramedia.com

Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

Downstream: Individualism is Destroying Our Freedom w/ Grace Blakeley May 13, 2024

Show notes

Common sense tells us that free-market economies maximise freedom and that planned economies, typically found under socialist governments, curtail it. But what if this is completely the wrong way around?

On this episode of Downstream, Aaron is joined by economist and author Grace Blakeley to discuss Henry Ford, Boeing and the nature of democracy.

You can buy Grace’s new book here: Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts and the Death of Freedom

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