How does “gossip” intersect with gender and power? If a woman “knows a secret” about a powerful man, what can she do with it? This week Yasmin and I consider gossip as an alternative social media network, bubbling under the surface of our political culture. Of course, Mad Men is a central text here, so we take a detailed look at how the show’s pilot uses the concept of “gossip” to lay out the show’s themes of identity, patriarchy, and public performance of self.

For the full episode and access to our magnifient library of bonus content: patreon.com/nostalgiatrap

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 Chappelle, and trace the wider shifts in poetry, comedy, and political culture since the invention of the atomic bomb. We also examine how Carrie navigates these ideas in her own poetry, with excerpts from her two excellent collections, Luscious Struggle (2020) and Species of Least Concern (2022).

Subscribe to Nostalgia Trap for bonus content, including our newest podcasts GENDER TRAP w/ Yasmin Nair and CAMPUS TRAP w/ Ryan Boyd: patreon.com/nostalgiatrap

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. government’s mission to stop groups like the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army fueled a dramatic expansion of state policing powers that gave birth to the age of total surveillance. 

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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, a time just before 9/11, just before the Internet swallowed everything, just before all the abstract existential anxieties layered into the lyrics and atmosphere of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot became permanent fixtures of our collective reality. 

Check out Jason’s latest single, “Wealth of the Canyon”: 

https://soundcloud.com/jasonpwoodbury/wealth-of-the-canyon?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

And hear him playing guitar w/ Kitimoto::

https://soundcloud.com/jasonpwoodbury/sets/kitimoto-vintage-smell/s-ttZ6VuJ3Qw8?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Subscribe to access our library of bonus content, including our all-new podcast with Yasmin Nair, Gender Trap: patreon.com/nostalgiatrap 

 

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 conversation focuses on tactics, from the relentless power-grabs of the right to the public demonstrations, mutual aid and OCCUPY experiments of the left. How do we reboot the framework of resistance? Because we’re gonna need a reboot.

To listen to the full episode: patreon.com/posts/gender-trap-ep-2-66230122

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, and offer some ideas about new ideological frameworks for navigating the trap of gender.

All future episodes of Gender Trap will be available exclusively for Nostalgia Trap subscribers at patreon.com/nostalgiatrap. 

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? 

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patreon.com/posts/livestream-5-4-w-66017971

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 “real”? Wrestling knows that it ain’t so simple. 

Subscribe and access our library of bonus episodes: patreon.com/nostalgiatrap

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 Donatella Di Cesare (with special appearances from Billy Joel and Don Draper).

To listen to the whole livestream and access our entire galaxy of bonus content: patreon.com/posts/65689550