Nostalgia Trap

Kyle Burke is an assistant professor of history and Co-Coordinator of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program at Hartwick College. In this conversation, he discusses his book Revolutionaries for the Right: Anticommunist Internationalism and Paramilitary Warfare in the Cold War, which explores how an international network of right-wing individuals and organizations supported anticommunist guerrillas throughout the global south from the 1950s to the 1980s. Burke helps us trace the line between vigilante and state violence, and puts contemporary right-wing movements like Qanon and the January 6th Capitol siege in the wider context of American anticommunism.

Karina Moreno is an associate professor in the department of urban policy and planning at Hunter College. She joins us to discuss her latest piece in Jacobin, which surveys the Biden administration’s “new” immigration policies, finding continuity with decades of criminalization and militarization along the Southern border. With an immigration system designed entirely to serve the needs of capital, and an ugly political discourse to support it, how can we reimagine our collective ideas about nations, borders, and security?

This week, Claudia and I talk about 3 of our favorite films, the “acid noirs”: The Long Goodbye (1973), The Big Lebowski (1998), and Inherent Vice (2014). United in theme and tone, the films explore the history of post-1960s Los Angeles by both indulging and subverting the tropes of noir detective stories. Our conversation focuses on how the films’ central character(s), Philip Marlowe (Elliot Gould), the Dude (Jeff Bridges), and Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix), simultaneously embody and critique the archetypal American male seeker/detective/scholar, set adrift in a world that no longer makes rational or moral sense. For the full episode, and to access all our bonus material, subscribe at patreon.com/nostalgiatrap.

Anne Balay is the author of two extraordinary works of social history: Steel Closets: Voices of Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Steelworkers and Semi Queer: Inside the World of Gay, Trans, and Black Truck Drivers. Her work investigates the intersection of queer and working class identities, and shows us how industrial, blue collar working environments are undergoing profound structural and social transformations in the 21st century. In this conversation, she shares stories and insights from the incredible people she’s encountered in her research, and reflects on the intersection of personal identity, working class culture, and neoliberal capitalism.

Justin Rogers-Cooper helps us takes a deep dive into the aesthetic and political legacy of Kurt Cobain, who died of suicide 25 years ago this month. Cobain is an iconic pop cultural figure for a number of reasons, but this conversation focuses on his personal politics, and how his band Nirvana expressed an organic, biologically-obsessed form of anti-capitalism. Emerging from the working class hell of the 1980s deindustrialized Pacific Northwest, Cobain’s art explored how an empty, impoverished society literally tears human bodies to pieces. From drugs to guns to misogyny, racism, violence, and capitalism itself, if you want to understand the inner contours of the American nightmare, Kurt Cobain’s life story and artistic output remain as critical as ever.  

This week’s guest runs the website and podcast The Blockchain Socialist, which seeks to investigate the intersection of blockchain technology and left politics. In this conversation, we talk about the basics of blockchain, crypto, and NFTs, and try to imagine if/how these tools might be used to create a more democratic political and economic system. For full episode, go to patreon.com/nostalgiatrap. 

Joe Clark (author of News Parade: The American Newsreel and the World as Spectacle) returns to the show to talk about the ugly elephant in the room for young academics: the total collapse of full-time teaching jobs at the university. In this conversation, we take on some undeniably depressing realities, but wait! It’s not all doom and gloom. Joe offers a number of different ideas and scenarios for those souls forging paths outside the tenure track, as we game out the landscape of future possibilities for the highly-educated and precariously employed. 

Courtenay Stallings is a writer, historian, and the author of Laura’s Ghost: Women Speak about Twin Peaks. The book explores how Laura Palmer, whose death lies at the center of David Lynch’s epic television series Twin Peaks, became an icon of strength and hope for women who have experienced similar abuse and trauma. In this conversation, Stallings discusses the origins of the project, why Laura’s story resonates specifically with women, the diversity of the Twin Peaks fan community, and the particular ways that Lynch’s work engages challenging ideas about gender, desire, and violence. 

Tom O’Neill’s mind-blowing book CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties sent me down so many unbelievable rabbit holes, made me feel so paranoid and obsessed, that I absolutely had to hear what my friend Justin Rogers-Cooper thought about it. Having now finished the book, he joins us this week for an exploration of O’Neill’s twisted story, as we consider both the content of his investigations and his very Nostalgia Trap-like research methodologies. Was Manson a spook? Did Bush really do 9/11? As we discover again and again, the search for the Truth is a long walk down a hall of mirrors. For full episode subscribe at patreon.com/nostalgiatrap.

Reality Bites (dir. Ben Stiller, 1994) is a film that attempts to condense the entirety of the Gen X experience into a 100 minute romantic comedy in which Winona Ryder faces the unfortunate predicament of simultaneously dating Ben Stiller and Ethan Hawke. Our good friends KJ Shepherd and Bill Black join us to discuss what Reality Bites is really saying about its cultural moment, and how the film’s conventional romantic plot reflects real anxieties about art, selling out, and sexuality that transcend our often narrow generational distinctions. Troy or Michael? Your answer says a lot!