Nostalgia Trap

As we continue into the "wormhole" opened up by COVID and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Justin and I consider the positions of those "behind the wall" of empire. How will we experience the future sho…

How much American bootstrap ideology are we obligated to deliver to students? This week Ryan Boyd and I take a look at some “practical advice” about “surviving college” from a couple of recent popula…

This week on the livestream we continue our discussion with Justin Rogers-Cooper on the end of the neoliberal order in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the "wormhole" we're entering. Just…

Aaron and Carlee from the 90s movie podcast Hit Factory join us for a conversation about Oliver Stone’s 1994 maximalist murder-fest Natural Born Killers. Is this a masterpiece of postmodern satire,…

The world is filled with Pete Campbells – people whose wealthy families and social connections allow them to coast through life, easily opening doors that are locked tight for the rest of us. Doesn’t…

We're back on the livestream circuit with Justin Rogers-Cooper, talking about the fragile set of historical circumstances upon which the neoliberal era was built, and how those circumstances are rapi…

Amanda Klein is a professor of Film Studies at East Carolina University and the author of a number of works on American media and society. Her latest book, Millennials Killed the Video Star: MTV’s T…

This week Justin and I consider the life and career of David Bowie, casting him as a master practitioner of pop magick, who harnessed the occult energies of art and celebrity to implant himself perma…

In her incredible new book Paradoxes of Nostalgia: Cold War Triumphalism and Global Disorder Since 1989, historian Penny Von Eschen identifies nostalgia as a corrosive, reactionary force in global p…

This week Ryan and I watch Wonder Boys (2000), starring Michael Douglas as a professor struggling to write a follow-up to his successful first novel while juggling personal relationships with student…

Bret Easton Ellis’ 1991 novel American Psycho, about a 1980s Wall Street serial killer, is one of the sickest acts of American satire I’ve read, and Mary Harron’s 2000 movie adaptation starring Chris…

Daniel Chard is a professor of history at Western Washington University and the author of Nixon’s War at Home: The FBI, Leftist Guerillas, and the Origins of Counterterrorism. In this conversation, …

Jonathan Crary is a professor of Modern Art and Theory at Columbia University whose work examines the role of the human eye, aesthetics, and visual culture in modern history. His latest book, Scorch…

Justin Farrar and I continue our conversation about rock music and the occult by watching the incredibly disturbing Paradise Lost documentary series, which details the case of three young men wrongf…

On the third and final installment of our series on the life, work, and legacy of Noam Chomsky, Justin and I talk about Chomsky the Doomer: between nuclear war and climate collapse, he doesn’t hold o…

Here's another quick clip from Part Two of our trilogy with Justin Rogers-Cooper on the complicated life, work, and legacy of Noam Chomsky. 

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Where does American popular music come from, and what does the devil have to do with it? On Part One of a two-part series on music and the occult, Justin Farrar and I discuss Peter Bebergal’s excelle…

Our series on the life, work, and legacy of Noam Chomsky continues with a critical look at Chomsky’s signature intellectual work, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Media. This epi…

This week Yasmin and I watch two films, Working Girls (Lizzie Borden, 1986) and Working Girl (Mike Nichols, 1988), as we think about the intersection of sex, gender, labor, and capitalism. Is sex wor…

Ryan’s recent trip to Montreal gets us thinking about the connections between cities and college campuses, as we try to imagine more vibrant institutions than the crumbling ones we currently haunt. O…