Novara Media

In episode one of Committed, Clare and Rivkah meet imprisoned Just Stop Oil activists who took direct action against the climate crisis and faced dire consequences. By blocking roads, climbing bridges and throwing soup at paintings, they made headlines – and became national hate figures in the process. We find out how four ordinary young people ended up as convicted criminals, at the sharp end of...

Ash speaks to author Natasha Brown about the big questions raised by her acclaimed second novel Universality, a ‘whydunnit’ mystery about identity, class and how we (re)invent ourselves. Plus: a dilemma about selling your soul. PSA: We’re going live at EartH in London on 21st May! Get your tickets now from Dice. Send your dilemmas to ifispeak@novaramedia.com Music by Matt Huxley.

Aaron Bastani was joined by Israeli historian Ilan Pappé for a live recording of Downstream on 7 April at EartH in East London. They discussed the origins of Britain's Israel lobby, the indoctrination of Israelis, and whether the recent atrocities committed in Gaza and the West Bank are signs of Israel's imminent collapse. Help us build people-powered media: http://novara.media/support

How does a teenage goodie-two-shoes grow up to be a convicted criminal? On Committed, a new four-part series from Novara Media, we go behind bars to find out why dozens of young climate activists are risking prison for what they believe in – and why Britain's courts are sending more of them to jail for longer. Committed begins on 22 April in the Novara Media podcast feed. Help us build people-powe...

Donald Trump has been ripping up the rule book on global trade, implementing huge tariffs and sending markets into a frenzy. But is there any method in his apparent madness? Legendary Marxist philosopher Slavoj Žižek regales Aaron with his thoughts on US trade policy – not to mention Franz Kafka, fully automated luxury communism and whether he's a "GILF". Žižek's new book, Zero Point, is out now o...

60: Are we too addicted to convenience? by Novara Media

There are few, true, public intellectuals anymore. But Ta-Nehisi Coates – author of ‘Between The World And Me’ and recipient of the MacArthur Genius Grant – is unquestionably foremost amongst them. His new book, The Message, is a sweeping exploration of how stories shape our politics – from the parameters of black struggle to Israel’s imposition of apartheid and ethnic cleansing. He and Ash Sarkar...

Moya and Ash offer advice to a special one who’s lost everything after renovating a house with their ex. Plus: what if some of us are ‘relationship people’ while the rest are better off alone? Follow @ifispeakpod on TikTok and send your dilemmas to ifispeak@novaramedia.com! Music by Matt Huxley.

When you think about neoliberal states, maybe you think of the UK, or Russia in the 90s, or Chile. You probably don’t think about Iran. And yet, argues Bahar Noorizadeh, the Islamic Republic has been, since before the 1979 revolution, a neoliberal state – and an imperial one as well. It has suppressed the Kurdish and Baloch nations inside its own borders. How can we show solidarity with feminist a...

Forensic Architecture is a research agency that investigates state violence and environmental destruction. It reconstructs events that states worldwide wants obscured, from Israel to the UK and from the Mediterranean to Ukraine. In doing so, they have invented a whole new discipline of investigation. On Novara FM, FA’s Assistant Director of Research, Samaneh Moafi, tells Eleanor Penny about their...

In 2024 the Conservative party suffered their worst defeat in two centuries. But while Labour struggles in office, the Tories are going nowhere fast. Meanwhile Britain shambles on without an economic model, or a wider vision for the future. How long can national decline continue? And when will things come to a head? Aaron Bastani speaks to author, and Mail on Sunday columnist, Peter Hitchens. They...

The gang convene for a milestone 50th Trip episode all about acid – as a drug, a music genre, a political concept, a mental tool and a thought corrosive. Nadia, Keir and Jem look back on six years of the podcast to decide if ‘acid’ is still a useful way of thinking about leftwing politics. With music from Tricky, Pink Floyd and Phuture, they discuss anticapitalism, Acid Corbynism, Rimbaud, acid ro...

We’ve entered a new climate reality. The pace of the energy transition has picked up – and so have the impacts of climate change. But has there ever actually been an energy transition? Or do we just use more and more and more of everything? As climate change accelerates, feedback loops in the climate system will start to speed it up even further. All this is to say: we’re approaching the point whe...

Ash has an intrusive thought that she thinks Moya can help with: make me fun again! Plus advice for a listener navigating the identity politics of the student council. We're now yapping on TikTok! Follow us @ifispeakpod Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com Music by Matt Huxley.

Nicola Dinan returns to the show to talk about her second novel, Disappoint Me, and respond to Moya's question about how to deal with a partner’s past mistakes. Plus, dilemmas about lip filler and bottom surgery. We're now yapping on TikTok! Follow us @ifispeakpod Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com Music by Matt Huxley.

After capitalism comes communism, according to Marxist doctrine. But in the meantime, what should we call our increasingly unequal system? 'Neofeudalism', suggests political theorist Jodi Dean, might be the best way to describe our growing society of serfs and servants. She talks to Eleanor Penny about a vision of class struggle led by the 'servant vanguard'. Capital's Grave is available from Vers...

On the 8th December 2024, the Assad regime in Syria fell, replaced by a group of former jihadists called Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham. In the north east of the country, in a territory called Rojava, a feminist socialist revolution has been ongoing for since 2012. Then a few weeks ago, Abdullah Öcalan, a Kurdish leader who has been imprisoned by Turkey for 26 years, called on the PKK, the Kurdish Worker's...

Moya has a bone to pick with Ash about Minority Rule and the conversations sparked by her book tour, while posing the big question: why is it so hard to form your own opinions? Plus: what to do when a newly sober friend starts drifting away. Follow us on TikTok! @ifispeakpod Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com Music by Matt Huxley.

When we talk about politics – whether it’s the climate, the economy or constitutional reform – the thing that’s at stake is an idea of ‘the future’. These days, the idea of imminent societal or ecological breakdown necessarily means adopting the framing of the present as being a ‘state of emergency’. This is an obvious way for political actors to attempt to generate consensus – but does this osten...

The US is no longer supporting Ukraine. And, in response, the UK and Europe are rearming. The Germans are taking off their hallowed debt brake to allow it. The French want a European Army. And Keir Starmer is talking tough about the capabilities of the British Armed Forces. In a world still dominated by the American military, what does it all matter? And what could we do instead? Khem Rogaly has t...

55: Joy is an act of resistance... right? by Novara Media

What's the point of the arts when the world is on fire? To follow the pipeline from creativity to activism and back again, Nadia Idle is joined by Amber Massie-Blomfield, former chief of theatre company Complicité and the author of Acts of Resistance: The Power of Art to Create Better World. Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters Help us build people-powered media – pl...

Lockdown was one of the defining experiences of our lives, but it was far from unique in history. From the plantation to the infirmary and from the leper colony to the stay at home order, contagion and confinement are inextricably intertwined. In The History of the World in 6 Plagues, Edna Bonhomme investigates how fear, power, race science and colonial violence have shaped six of the most powerfu...

In 1996 Samuel Huntington published ‘The Clash of Civilizations’. At the time its hypothesis was counter-intuitive. Despite the supremacy of the United States after the Cold War, the ascent of globalisation would not lead to the end of history, but a return to distinctive and competing civilisations. Rather than homogeneity we would see a growing emphasis on difference, rather than unhindered free...

Why did Stormzy delete his pro-Palestine posts just before unveiling a Happy Meal tie-in with McDonald's? Ash asks Moya if big artists are all just businesses in the end. Plus: how to deal with a delusional friend. Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com Music by Matt Huxley.