Nostalgia Trap

Why are sitcoms like Small Wonder so haunting to some of us? My guest, Bridget McGovern, a writer and managing editor at sci-fi/fantasy site tor.com, sheds some light on this subject and many others as we delve into the pop cultural universe, sharing stories about coming of age during an era of often strange, sometimes inspiring, always memorable cultural production. From The Golden Girls and Designing Women to Jim Jarmusch and Game of Thrones, Bridget and I talk about pop culture's particular impact on identity, its power to build communities, and its uncanny ability to make us keep the lights on.

What does is it mean to be "conservative" in America? My guest on this episode, professor and writer Corey Robin, has spent a great deal of his career thinking about conservatism and its particular influence in the U.S. His most recent book, The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin, investigates the consistent themes and ideologies underlying this movement, and offers some startling conclusions that, perhaps unsurprisingly, make a lot of conservatives really angry. In this conversation, we talk about his coming of age in the Reagan eighties, his college years spent confronting the realities of Ivy League endowments, and his current work in publications from Harper's to the New York Times. You can find more of Robin's political analysis on his blog, coreyrobin.com. 

I first became aware of James Hoff as the editor of the student newspaper, the Advocate, at the CUNY Graduate Center while both of us were working on our degrees in the mid-oughts. James shepherded the paper through a turbulent moment at CUNY, maintaining a radical voice that tirelessly defended the mainly working class student body against an often appalling administration. In this conversation we talk about his upbringing in California, his time spent traveling around the United States, and his eventual landing in New York City, where he teaches English and continues to promote working class politics (like the 15 Now movement) in publications like the Huffington Post and Inside Higher Ed.

As we continue our journey through the halls of LaGuardia Community College in Queens, New York, I stop to talk with Christine Marks, a professor of English whose work focuses on intimate structures like identity, gender, food, and the body. Our conversation includes Christine's less-than-ideal experience as a high school exchange student from Germany, her eventual return to the United States, and her work with American novelist and essayist Siri Hustvedt. 

Stafford Gregoire wasn't always a professor of English at CUNY's LaGuardia Community College. His past as a bike messenger in New York City during the early 1980s, riding the streets and avenues with a cast of characters out of a Hubert Selby, Jr. novel, set him on an intellectual journey that continues now in the halls of higher education. Stafford's stories touch on racial identity, gentrification, class politics, and the role that art can play in moving us toward both political and personal transcendence.

On Episode Two of The Nostalgia Trap, I finally get the opportunity to meet and chat with Laura Tanenbaum, a professor of English at LaGuardia Community College whose work I've enjoyed on Jacobin, her own blog The Golden Notebooks, and in some of the most rewarding Facebook political battles of the past year. Laura and I talk about her years growing up in Chicago among a science-oriented family, her complicated feelings about 90s culture and films like Fight Club, and her interdisciplinary approach to teaching and writing.

Conner Kilpatrick, writer and editor of Jacobin magazine, discusses his childhood in Texas, the influence of G.I. Joe on his political beliefs, growing up in Texas during the 80s and 90s, depolysisation and globalization after the Cold War, the impact of evangelical Christians on holidays, technological transformations and political awakening, opposition and disillusionment, childhood perception of socialism and graduate school, exploring Jackman as a floating signifier, the benefits of the New Deal and the impact of leftist politics, and family roots and political affiliation.