Bungacast

On revolution, epic poetry, John Milton, and freedom. George and contributing editor Alex Gourevitch talk to Orlando Reade, who teaches English at Northeastern University London.  We discuss Orlando’s new book What In Me Is Dark: The Revolutionary Life of Paradise Lost and the history of readings of John Milton’s great epic poem. Is Paradise Lost a poem about darkness? What does a poem written in...

On Erdogan's World and the revolt against it. [For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast ] Historian Djene Bajalan joins George and Alex to review the past month – ceasefires in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, winning and losing US patronage, Trump's inconsistent strategy and leaks, and the gold rush. We then turn to a country exemplary of the contradictions of the end of the En...

On critical theory and autonomy. [For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast ] Jensen Suther, a junior fellow at Harvard working in philosophy and literature, talks to Alex H and contributing editor Alex Gourevitch about art, culture, and socialism. He also offers a riposte to previous guest Anna Kornbluh's discussion of immediacy, and its cultural forms such as autoficition. What do...

On class formation, fragmentation, pessimism and optimism. George and contributing editor Leigh Phillips talk to Dan Evans, a writer and academic based in South Wales. We discuss his piece in the New Socialist, ‘Is the Working Class Back?’ and themes emerging from it. How important are definitions of class? If the working class remains weak and fragmented, and its politics increasingly chaotic, wh...

On cities and the politics of development. [For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast ] Ben Bradlow, assistant professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton, talks to Alex about his book Urban Power: Democracy and Inequality in São Paulo and Johannesburg . If our future is urban – and it is – why is it different to what we imagined? Are Johannesburg and São Paulo rep...

On Embracing Alienation. Todd McGowan is back on the pod, talking to George and Alex about his book, Embracing Alienation: Why We Shouldn't Try To Find Ourselves . Why is alienation good actually? What does it give us? How is alienation related to subjectivity and freedom? What is the problem with anti-alienation politics of Left and Right? What happened to the 1960s concern with alienation, where...

On Trumpworld: Vance in Munich; Musk in South Africa. [This contains only the interview on South Africa – for the full episode subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast ] Alex, George and Ryan Zickgraf round up events in Germany: first the elections, then US Vice-President JD Vance's speech to the Munich Security Conference where he called out Western elites' hypocrisy on liberalism and democracy. Then A...

On Gramsci in the 21st century. [ Patreon Exclusive ] Sociologist Nathan Sperber and our own George Hoare talk to Alex H and Lee Jones about the new edition to their book, An Introduction to Antonio Gramsci: His Life, Thought and Legacy , which includes a new chapter on Gramsci's relevance to contemporary politics and events and a new section on Gramsci's influence on the New Right. We discuss: Ho...

This episode, originally published in June 2024 only for subscribers, is crucial backdrop to this Sunday's (23 Feb 2025) snap elections in Germany.  For more like this, join us at patreon.com/bungacast On German political derangement. Independent researcher and writer Gregor Baszak joins us to talk about German centrism being squeezed under pressure from both left and right — Sahra Wagenknecht and...

On the world under Trump, and British responses.  Tim Pendry, author of the Unstable Times  substack, as well as an international affairs consultant, talks to Alex H and Lee Jones about the world under Trump II, the massive shifts underway, and his own policy work with the Workers Party of Britain. How has intra-bourgeois struggle shaped the past decades in politics? What is "American imperial nat...

On European decline and inertia. [For full episode: patreon.com/bungacast ] Anton Jäger is back, talking to Alex and George about Belgium's new right-wing government, American hyperpolitics, and the lack of a European future. The radical right has prevailed in Belgium, despite having factors that should impede this, like higher union density, lower inequality and so on. Why? Why is the US particul...

On David Harvey's The Condition of Postmodernity (1989). [Patreon Exclusive - subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast ] We focus in particular on Part III: The Experience of Space and Time – and reflect on the general themes of this section. The central question is: How do we rescue a sense of ‘place’ – in a political, forward-looking and future-oriented way – after the age of globalisation? The age of...

On Syria, the fall of Assad, and nationalism in the Middle-East. [ Patreon Exclusive ] Historian Djene Bajalan  talks to Alex about a major rearrangement in the Levant. We discuss: Who are Syria's new rulers HTS, and what is their vision – if any? Did geopolitics really determine the fall of Assad and the Ba'ath Party? How HTS's victory is so profoundly different from Islamism in Iran 1979 Why 202...

On disinformation, NATO vs Russia, terrorism + more. [Full episode for subscribers only. Go to patreon.com/bungacast ] We look back at a turbulent last month or so with the help of guest and "disinformation bot" Tara McCormack. We put it all in the context of Trump's return, post-neoliberalism and deglobalisation. 00:13:52 – Jacob Siegel   talks to Alex about Meta's policy U-turn on censorship and...

On the martial law crisis in South Korea. For the full episode: patreon.com/bungacast Jamie Doucette, who researches contemporary political economy and Korea's development at the University of Manchester, talks to Alex and George about December 2024's coup attempt and the past 50 years in the Republic of Korea.  Why is South Korea western capitalism's best propaganda tool? Did Yoon Suk Yeol want t...

On Trump's foreign policy, the 2nd time round. Historian and podcaster Daniel Bessner  joins Alex Hochuli and contributing editor Lee Jones to ask how this era of rot and decay will proceed under Trump II, from Ukraine to China and beyond. We discuss: Will we see "America First transactionalism"? Does Trump have a capable cadre to bend the state to his will? What will Trump’s relationship be to th...

On The Fall of Public Man. [ Patreon Exclusive ] We continue working through the 2024/25 syllabus  and the first theme, The Future of Place. We ask is politics possible without a sense of place. Here we discuss chapter 13, "Community becomes uncivilised", and deal with listener questions. How does the changed relationship between public and private impact notions of community and of place? How doe...

On President Jimmy Carter's responsibility for neoliberalism. [ Patreon Exclusive ] Writer and historian Tim Barker talks to Alex Hochuli and contributing editor Alex Gourevitch about the former president's life and legacy. What do people get wrong about Carter? Was Carter, not Reagan, the start of neoliberalism? How is Carter's much-admired 'decency' of a piece with his neoliberalism? What is 'au...

On radical conservatism and global order. Professor Michael C. Williams talks to George and Alex about his co-authored World of the Right and how the radical right has gone global. We discuss: Does academia takes the Right as seriously as it should? What's the difference between the radical right and the far right, the new right, national conservatives, or fascists? How is the right 'global' – not...

On Conclave. In our final episode of the year, we debate Edgar Berger's new film about a Papal election, featuring Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci as Cardinals and Isabella Rossellini as a nun. Is the film about an alien, abstruse process – the conclave – or is it about something familiar and earthly? Is the film about the sacred or the profane? About temporal or holy power? What does it say about...

On Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity [For access, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast/membership ] We continue working through the 2024/25 syllabus  with the first theme, The Future of Place, asking, is politics possible without a sense of place. We discuss Marc Augé's much-referenced 1992 work on 'non-places': airports, shopping malls, corporate hotels, motorways... We...

On immediacy, representation, and anti-politics. Anna Kornbluh , professor of English and author of Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism talks to Alex about the cultural, political, and economic changes she refers to as 'immediacy'. We discuss: Is 'immediacy' just a vibe, or is vibe itself non-mediated? How does anti-representation in film, TV and books relate to anti-representation in p...

On your questions, comments & criticisms. [ Patreon Exclusive ] We're back with a final letters to the editor episode of 2024 in which we discuss: the universalisation of 'anti-fascism' as a kind of politics whether there are any actual 'family abolitionists' out there humanitarian intervention in Palestine the hard and less hard facts of US imperial decline the legitimacy of 'existential' pol...

On Taiwan, semiconductors, and war. [ Full episode for subscribers only ] James Lin, Assistant Professor of International Studies at the University of Washington at Seattle, talks to Phil about Taiwanese politics and the country's place in the world, in terms of the global economy and Sino-American geopolitical rivalry. We talk about Taiwanese history and politics, from Japanese occupation and col...

On Mothers and the institution of the family. We're happy to bring you the recording of the launch event for the third issue of Damage magazine, with whom we're partnered. George and Alex were present for the event as part of a sequence of recordings on the future of place that will be released as a docu-series in the New Year. For now, here is regular contributor Catherine Liu and friend of the p...