Bungacast

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...

On the End of History and Europe. [For full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast ] LSE professor Mike Wilkinson talks to Phil and Alex about how the history of European integration fits with constitutional theories and ideas of sovereignty. We discuss:  In what way are the conspiracy theories about the EU true? What are the origins of European integration in the inter-war crisis? How did Eu...

On the maelstrom of the metropolis. [Full episode only available to subscribers. Join at patreon.com/bungacast ] We kick of the 2024/25 syllabus  with the first theme, The Future of Place, asking, is politics possible without a sense of place. We discuss Georg Simmel's short essay " Metropolis and Mental Life " and Marshall Berman's All That Is Solid Melts into Air  (chapter 5, on New York). How d...

On the military decline of the American empire. [ Patreon Exclusive ] The Swedish writer Malcom Kyeyune talks to Phil about what happens to the evil empire when the stormtroopers can’t shoot straight and the empire isn’t producing enough star destroyers. They discuss: What happens to international politics in a world of new geopolitical rivalries?  How does American industrial decline affect US mi...

On pro-family politics, and the US election and labour. [ Patreon Exclusive - in association with Damage magazine] Dustin Guastella talks to Phil and Alex about what the election of Trump will mean for US labour organisations. We then move on to Dustin's proposal for progressive pro-family policies. What actually is "the family" today?  Social democrats are proud of policies but wary of encouragin...

On Trump's return and the end of the End of History (still!) Historian and Jacobin contributing editor Matt Karp  joins us to extract the true meaning of the US election. We discuss: How Trump's victory explodes so many Democrat assumptions about demography and identity How this election re-writes the past ten years' history Whether Trump still retains an anti-political or anti-establishment charg...

On your questions, comments, criticisms. [ Patreon Exclusive ] It's our letter to the episode show where we have a chance to answer you, the listener. We discuss: Has Bungacast gone eco-austerian? Are Marx and Freud in conflict? Is abortion about healthcare or about freedom? Why has the left abandoned liberty? Did we underestimate Israel’s existential fears? And what’s so “complex” about the Arab-...

On Georgia's pivotal elections and its post-Soviet history. [ Full episode only for patrons] Hans Gutbrod, who has been working in the Caucasus region since 1999 and now teaches at Ilia State University in Tblisi, talks to Alex about Georgia's choice between the EU and Russia. We discuss: Who is Bidzina Ivanishvili, whose wealth is equal to 1/4 of GDP? What is the ruling Georgian Dream's pitch to...

On the US election, messaging and learning stupid lessons. [ Full episode only at Patreon ] We welcome Amber A'Lee Frost (California via Indiana and New York) and Ryan Zickgraf (Pennsylvania via Illinois and Georgia) to preview the US election. We discuss: Why the campaigns have been so focused on micro-targeting demographics Whether Russians or Brits are illegitimately swinging the election How t...

On egg-freezing, 'having it all', and neoliberal liberty. [ Patreon Exclusive ] We welcome Damage  editor and practicing psychologist Amber Trotter on to talk about "Frozen Freedom", Amber's piece on artificial reproductive technology and different kinds of freedom. Alex and George ask her about: How empowering is female emancipation from biological limitations and compulsions? Can women now "have...

On the left-wing case for freedom. Regular contributor Alex Gourevitch is back on to talk about how the Democrats are approaching the US presidential election. Alex talks us through an influential and widely-read article that he wrote in 2020 with Corey Robin on how the left needed to reclaim freedom as its own. We discuss: Why is the left suddenly talking about freedom? When did it abandon freedo...

On Israel's invasion of Lebanon and beyond. Karl Sharro (Lebanese-Iraqi architect and satirist @KarlreMarks ) and Iranian writer and historian Arash Azizi  join us to discuss war in the Middle East. We ask: Is Israel finally waging the great war that will rid it of all enemies?  Does Israel have any real plan? What motivates its actions in Gaza and Lebanon? What is the impact on Hezbollah of losin...

On Nations & Nationalism since 1870. [ Patreon Exclusive ] We start by dealing with your questions regarding last month's RC, on Stalin, Zhukhov and WWII. Then we read and discuss Eric Hobsbawm's classic work in which he emphasises that nations are exclusively modern constructions. We discuss: How succulent Hobsbawm's account is Whether he was wrong about globalisation eclipsing nationalism –...

On France's permacrisis. [Patreon Exclusive] French sociologist Nathan Sperber talks to George and Alex about his new essay in the New Left Review, "The French Crisis: Organic or Conjunctural". We catch up with what has happened in France since Macron gambled and called impromptu elections in the summer. We discuss: Why does France always seem to be more in crisis than its neighbours?  How has Fra...

On liberal takes on the end of the End of History. [ Patreon Exclusive ] We start by discussing Yasha Mounk's dismissal of an end to the End of History. Does he underestimate liberal democracy's inability to legitimise itself anymore? Is the talk of populism a way of deflecting from liberalism's undoing? We then deal with your comments and questions [for patrons only, subscribe at patreon.com/bung...

On tradwives, influencers, and boys. [ Patreon Exclusive ] Amber is back on the pod, talking to Alex and George about her forthcoming piece on neo-traditionalism and women, in Damage issue 3, which will be on Mothers . We discuss: What are the models of 'tradwives' out there? If homemakers make homes, do tradwives make content? Does the tradwife phenomenon speak to sense of exhaustion with being a...