

Nostalgia Trap
David Parsons
Deep dive conversations on American history, politics, and pop culture, hosted by history professor and writer David Parsons.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Sep 20, 2021 • 1h
Nostalgia Trap - Episode 292: The Prince w/ Ross Barkan
Ross Barkan is a journalist who has been covering New York state politics, in particular the governorship of Andrew Cuomo, for the last eight years. He joins us to discuss his book The Prince: Andrew Cuomo, Coronavirus, and the Fall of New York, which provides stunning details of the (now ex-) governor’s handling of COVID, and how his deft manipulation of political power and media obscured his own role in creating staggering suffering and death among the New Yorkers he swore to represent. For more on the Cuomo saga, and the erotic contours of the “daddy” image he cultivated among liberals, check out this week’s bonus episode, “Cuomosexuality” with Justin Rogers-Cooper: patreon.com/posts/episode-293-w-56427764

Sep 11, 2021 • 2min
Nostalgia Trap - Episode 291: 9 Theses on 9/11, Part Three w/ Justin Rogers-Cooper (TEASER)
For the conclusion of our 9/11 trilogy, Justin Rogers-Cooper and I watch Alfonso Cuarón's 2006 cinematic masterpiece Children of Men, a work that has moved and obsessed both of us for years. We reflect on how the film uncannily captures the alternative future 9/11 launched us into — a world in which the apocalyptic background is getting closer and closer, changing the terms of our lives in ways we might not have anticipated. Listen to the full episode here: patreon.com/posts/episode-291-9-on-56022985

Sep 8, 2021 • 2min
Nostalgia Trap - Episode 290: 9 Theses on 9/11, Part Two w/ Justin Rogers-Cooper (TEASER)
For Part Two of our 9/11 trilogy, Justin Rogers-Cooper helps us untangle the world of 9/11 truthers and related conspiracy theories, as we explore how the attacks and their aftermath destabilized consensus reality and led us into a new landscape of weaponized digital information. This conversation covers a lot of territory, from Alex Jones to Burn After Reading, from the White House to Saudi Arabia, and from Seymour Hersh to Zero Dark Thirty. Cutting through the haze of fake news, internet grifts, and homemade YouTube documentaries, we try to answer some basic questions: Why did 9/11 happen? Who benefitted? And how did it transform world history? Listen to the full episode: patreon.com/posts/episode-290-9-on-55920380

Aug 31, 2021 • 1h 25min
Nostalgia Trap - Episode 289: 9 Theses on 9/11, Part One w/ Justin Rogers-Cooper
To mark the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Justin Rogers-Cooper joins us for a trilogy of episodes considering the event’s legacy and long-term impact. In Part One, we consider the immediate shock of the day and how it seemed to instantly give birth to a new historical era, examining how Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and Jon Stewart’s sappy Daily Show monologues reflect the sentimental nationalism that gripped American liberals in the attack’s wake.

Aug 28, 2021 • 4min
Nostalgia Trap - Episode 288: We? What the Fuck We? w/ Bertrand Cooper (TEASER)
Bertrand Cooper joins us to discuss his latest incendiary piece in Current Affairs, “Who Actually Gets to Create Black Pop Culture?,” which argues that the elite class composition of many Black creators reveals deep contradictions in the politics of woke Hollywood. Listen to the whole episode: patreon.com/posts/episode-288-we-w-55434030

Aug 24, 2021 • 1h 8min
Nostalgia Trap - Episode 287: Along the Royal Road w/ Jenni Olson
Jenni Olson is a historian, archivist, and experimental filmmaker whose two feature-length films The Joy of Life (2005) and The Royal Road (2015) combine dreamlike urban landscapes, the dark history of California, and deeply personal reflections on queer love and desire. In this conversation, we talk about the origins of her aesthetic and the particular challenges of both creating and exhibiting historical material in non-traditional form. To hear more about queer and radical cinema, see Episode 281 with Donald Borenstein: patreon.com/posts/ep-281-at-new-we-53149916.

Aug 17, 2021 • 41min
Nostalgia Trap - NAM-TV - S1 E6: Seduce and Destroy
On Episode 6 of NAM-TV, we cover events in 1964 and 1965, as American involvement in Vietnam finally made the move from distant meddling into a full-blown military invasion. We trace a direct line from Lyndon Johnson’s disturbing sociopathic fantasies and stunning political cynicism to the sickening acceleration of violence unleashed in late 1964, after a questionable series of events in the Gulf of Tonkin and a hasty congressional resolution give the president a blank check to wage war in Vietnam. Listen to the whole series at patreon.com/nostalgiatrap.

Aug 10, 2021 • 1h 2min
Nostalgia Trap - Episode 286: How Do You Do, Fellow Working Class? w/ Erik Baker
Who are “the people”? Erik Baker joins us to discuss his latest piece in n+1, a review of Thomas Frank’s 2020 book The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism. Baker takes on Frank’s New Deal nostalgia and romantic vision of a monolithic, left-leaning American working class, a set of distorted perspectives that still hold weight for a significant portion of the (extremely online) left. In this conversation, we explore what’s the matter with Frank’s analysis, and how to move past the ahistorical assumptions that continue to animate progressive discourse. For more on left populism and angry white dudes, check out this week's bonus episode: https://www.patreon.com/posts/ep-285-party-its-54555603

Aug 5, 2021 • 4min
Nostalgia Trap - Episode 285: Party Like It's 1999 w/ Kyle Riismandel (TEASER)
Full episode: patreon.com/nostalgiatrap. Kyle Riismandel returns to the Trap to discuss the abysmal HBO documentary Woodstock ‘99: Peace, Love, and Rage, a film that, despite its shortcomings, gives us plenty to chew on about a weird era in American cultural politics. From Alanis Morrissette to Kid Rock, from Girls Gone Wild to Monica Lewinsky, we talk about the jarring social landscape of third-wave feminism, frat rock backlash, cynical corporate cash-grabs, and lots more heavy, angsty riffs straight from the late ‘90s.

Jul 26, 2021 • 1h 5min
Nostalgia Trap - Episode 284: That's America, Charlie Brown w/ Blake Scott Ball
What do Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, and the rest of the gang have to tell us about the staggering loneliness at the heart of the American experience? Blake Scott Ball is a professor of history at Huntingdon College and the author of Charlie Brown’s America: The Popular Politics of Peanuts. In this conversation, we trace the history of Charles Schulz’s iconic comic strip alongside the history of the late 20th century, as we see how Schulz’s characters navigated the Cold War, civil rights movement, Vietnam War, and other epochal events of the era, creating an emotional throughline that continues to permeate the American cultural imagination.