Nostalgia Trap

Carrie Conners is a poet, writer, and professor of English at LaGuardia Community College; her latest book Laugh Lines: Humor, Genre, and Political Critique in Late Twentieth Century American Poetry explores how American poets since the 1950s engage humor as a political and aesthetic tactic. In this conversation, we talk about the language games of standup comics from George Carlin to Dave Chappel...

Daniel Chard is a professor of history at Western Washington University whose work focuses on social movements, power, and political violence. His latest book, Nixon's War at Home: The FBI, Leftist Guerillas, and the Origins of Counterterrorism explores the intersection of leftist violence and state repression in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In this conversation, Chard explains how the U.S. gov...

Writer, musician, and fellow Wilco-head Jason P. Woodbury returns to talk with me about the 20th anniversary of the band's eerily prophetic album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot . Our conversation focuses on the process of making the album, as documented in the film I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (dir. Sam Jones, 2002), which captures not only Wilco's particular creative agony but the wider cultural moment,...

This week Justin and I talk about the idea of "fragile capitalism" in the context of the big crypto collapse, Peloton's hilarious demise, baby formula shortages, and other troubling signs of a global economy on the brink. What happens when the forces in control can't keep the lights on? To listen to the whole episode and access our excellent library of bonus content: patreon.com/posts/66310876

The impending demise of Roe v. Wade occupies our attention this week, as Yasmin narrates some key moments in the wider history of abortion politics over the last 50 years. We survey the racial and class dimensions of abortion access, reel at the scourge of liberal feminism, and gossip about the evil pro-life "Catholic socialists" lurking amongst us on the left. Most of all, though, this conversati...

Gender Trap is an all-new podcast series with me (David Parsons) and Yasmin Nair attempting to move the conversation forward on gender and sexuality in politics, economics, and popular culture. In our inaugural episode, we explore the different modes of performative masculinity available to American men, from Alan Alda to Jason Momoa, explain why Mad Men will be a central text for our discussions,...

What else could we talk about today? Justin and I go dead alien/queer Marx on the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade leak, and reflect on the idea of "sliding back" on race and gender vs liberal narratives about the inevitable march of progress. The fascists are here. They're making their moves; we know what they want. What are OUR moves?  Subscribe to listen to all our bonus content:  patreon.com/posts/...

Brian Oliu is a writer and teacher whose latest book, Body Drop: Notes on Fandom and Pain in Professional Wrestling , takes an intensely personal, often brutal approach to analyzing wrestling's weird place in American culture. In this conversation, we talk about the wages of violence, gender, and capitalism in the sport itself, and in the giant corporations that control it. What's "fake"? What's "...

So is Biden gonna cancel these student loans or what? On this week's livestream, Justin and I talk about liberals fleeing Elon Musk's Twitter (lol), get into our predictions about where the student loan question is headed (the Supreme Court, probably), think about the American right's "cult of the gun," and explore the idea of a borderless world via excerpts from Thomas Paine, Noam Chomsky, and Do...

Justin Farrar's first appearance on the show was a dense journey through the history of rock music and American counterculture, and it got me thinking about (and listening to) The Doors for the first time in years. Like many of us, I grew up with Jim Morrison's iconic presence looming out from lots of different corners: posters in head shops, t-shirts worn by stoned high schoolers, the Oliver Ston...

This week Justin and I talk about the right's pedophile/masculinity obsession, from Tucker Carlson and testicle tanning to predictable election-year assaults on teachers and other liberal cucks. Is this just normal American insanity, or is something stranger going on? To listen to the whole episode and access our entire library of bonus content: patreon.com/posts/livestream-4-20-65392882

Gregory Daddis is a professor of history at San Diego State University whose work focuses on the history of the Cold War and the American war in Vietnam. His latest book, Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men's Adventure Magazines , explores how hyper-violent, hyper-sexualized images of war in macho "pulp" magazines of the 1950s shaped the attitudes of young American men in the Vietnam War....

On this week's livestream, Justin brings us some key ideas from Chomsky, Fanon and, of course, C.L.R. James, as we ponder the questions: How do people become obedient to structures that oppress them? What conditions create solidarity? What conditions breed division? And what do The Doors have to do with any of this??!! To listen to the whole episode and access our entire catalog of bonus episodes:...

This week Justin and I ask the eternal question: Does the United States' ugly record of horrific interventions in the affairs of other states undermine its claims to moral leadership? LOL of course it does! But, as we look to our Guiding Lights (Chomsky and Zinn) there's always more to the story... To hear the whole episode, join our bonus stream: patreon.com/posts/livestream-4-6-64815684

Peter Staudenmaier is a professor of history at Marquette University whose work focuses on Nazi Germany, Italian fascism, environmental history, and occultism. His latest book, Ecology Contested: Environmental Politics between Left and Right (AK Press, 2021), explores how environmental ideals circulate on both the radical right and left, and how questions of ecology fit into the landscape of consp...

Ryan Boyd returns to the Trap to talk about the unique generational experience of an analog childhood and digital adulthood. From Steely Dan on vinyl to David Foster Wallace on paper, we explore the desire to consume art in non-digital ways, and what that says about our fractured electronic existence. Full episode is here: patreon.com/posts/episode-320-west-64258531

Adam Kotsko is a theologian and culture writer who has written a number of books and essays about American pop culture. In this conversation, we discuss his books Awkwardness (2010) and Why We Love Sociopaths (2012), as we explore how shows like The Office, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and The Sopranos reflect the disturbed social politics of 21st century neoliberalism. Check out o...

Jason P. Woodbury is a musician and music writer based in the Sonoran desert. Check out his work on Aquarium Drunkard and his personal site , where you'll find lots of great stuff on music nostalgia, the vinyl world, counterculture, and lots of other favorite Trap topics. In this conversation, we talk about what we gained and lost with streaming music, the 2000s garage rock revival, the evolution...

The Trap Livestream returns, as Justin Rogers-Cooper joins me for a live conversation about the insane wormhole we seem to be entering: Russia's invasion of Ukraine, gangster capitalism, Nazis, nuclear brinksmanship--plus the Saudis like China more than us now?! Let's get a hold of some narrative threads as the global system unravels/reorders/implodes. Full episode here: patreon.com/posts/livestre...

What is "apocalypse" and is it always a bad thing?  This week we talk with Aaron Thorpe of the Trillbilly Worker's Party podcast about maintaining a positive vision of the future despite all signs to the contrary. In addition to reflecting on apocalyptic fiction like Children of Men and Station Eleven , we consider how the "end of the world" shapes our vision of what's possible. Listen to the full...

Ryan Boyd teaches in the Writing Program at the University of Southern California. His website collects much of his excellent writing, including a number of pieces on pedagogy and the state of higher education that we discuss in this episode. From crippling student loans and shitty mask policies to racist administrations and right-wing censorship, Ryan helps us explore what's wrong, what can be do...

Historian Henry Maar's new book Freeze! The Grassroots Movement to Halt the Arms Race and End the Cold War examines the ways in which ordinary people confronted the horrors of nuclear war, with a specific focus on the extraordinary Nuclear Freeze campaign of the 1980s. In this conversation, Maar explains the roots of anti-nuclear activism in the United States, and tells us how Ronald Reagan's aggr...

The always engaging Yasmin Nair returns to continue our survey of how COVID is fucking us up on multiple channels: politically, economically, and spiritually. From liberals cheering on the deaths of the unvaxxed to celebrities spinning off into NFT land—all while the Biden administration tells us to "Google it"—things are looking pretty grim. How do we find hope in this degraded social landscape?...

Neil Young occupies god-tier status on Nostalgia Trap, so it's no mystery who we're supporting in his fight with Spotify and Joe Rogan. But this seemed like a good opportunity to talk in more detail about the connections between art and politics, particularly in the context of "the sixties," and our friend Justin Farrar has done a lot of thinking on the subject.  Justin joins us this week to talk...

Remember when oil explained everything ? Sean from the Antifada podcast joins us for a conversation about the film Syriana (2005) and the politics of oil in the 90s and 2000s. From peak oil theories and endless oil documentaries to the "No Blood for Oil" chants of the anti-Iraq War movement, we explore the history of fossil fuel's slippery place within the larger left.