Nostalgia Trap

On this episode of Housing Trap, Andrew is joined by Zach Paganini, a Ph.D. student in the Earth and Environmental Sciences program at the CUNY Graduate Center, for a conversation about the effects of water on the political economy of housing in America's coastal cities. Threatened by floods, superstorms, and rising sea levels, cities from New York to Florida to Southern California, known for their lucrative real estate, are already undergoing immense shifts in anticipation of a wet future. Schustek and Paganini explore the contours of that future, explaining how housing policy is a central arena in the battle for economic and environmental fairness and sustainability.

For more Housing Trap, along with access to the entire Nostalgia Trap bonus library for just $5, subscribe to our Patreon: patreon.com/nostalgiatrap

This week Justin and I watched the HBO Max documentary This Place Rules, which gives us a chance to talk about the weird undercurrents of rape, sexual domination, violence, and pedophilia coursing through 1/6, QAnon, Alex Jones, Proud Boys, Antifa, and even the filmmaker himself. Are we in a unique moment for subconscious urges bubbling to the surface of public politics, or has it always been this way?

Listen to the whole episode: https://www.patreon.com/posts/livestream-1-13-77204705

What is film noir and why does it matter? In the first episode of a series called Shadow Nation, I reflect on the commercial failure of Guillermo Del Toro's prestige noir remake Nightmare Alley (2021) and wonder what makes a movie "noir" in the first place. Is it just detectives and fedoras and femmes fatale? Or is there a way of understanding noir beyond style, genre, and visual aesthetic?

Check out the full episode, in video and podcast form for Nostalgia Trap subscribers:

patreon.com/posts/trap-tv-shadow-76793267

Our series on 1990s/2000s comedy continues this week with a conversation about Seinfeld. Justin and I watched two episodes (S5E5 "The Bris" and S7E4 "The Wink"), and reflect on the show's weird elevated "dream vision" of 90s bourgeois culture.

Listen to the whole episode: patreon.com/posts/livestream-12-30-76564956

This week Justin and I watch Elf (2003) and talk about Will Ferrell's late 90s/early 2000s comic persona in the context of male bodies, George W. Bush, and a particular cultural turn toward "dumb assholes" in the digital era.

Listen to the whole episode: patreon.com/posts/livestream-12-23-76298993

What makes disturbing, graphic shows like CSI and Intervention so morbidly appealing? How does our desire for uncomfortable entertainment reflect a larger normalization of fear, precarity, and violence in our everyday reality? Hunter Hargraves is Associate Professor of Cinema and Television Arts at California State University, Fullerton. His new book, Uncomfortable Television (Duke University Press, 2023), examines how 21st century television invites viewers to find pleasure in discomfort, training us to survive in a neoliberal world that's just one cringe experience after another.

Subscribe to Nostalgia Trap and get access to all our bonus stuff

This week Justin and I jump off our previous discussion of Groundhog Day with a look at Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1987), a deceptively complicated film about class, gender, and the queer social dynamics of American capitalism. We talk a lot about John Candy as a performer and celebrity here, finding lots of unexpected connections with the life and death of Kurt Cobain, another figure who introduced working class conceptions of embodiment (think butts, buttholes, blood, semen, foot odor, etc) at a critical moment in American pop cultural history.

Since clever people are now declaring the end of college education, Ryan and I thought it might be fun to survey the highs and lows of our own respective "college" experiences, from undergrad to Ph.D. What worked for us, and what ruined our lives forever? Like any good academics, we're making a list!

Listen to the whole episode

Go read Ryan's Substack

Check out David's grad school rant on YouTube

Daniel Horowitz is a historian and the author of many books on American consumer culture, economics, and political ideology. In this conversation we discuss his latest book, American Dreams, American Nightmares: Culture and Crisis in Residential Real Estate from the Great Recession to the COVID-19 Pandemic (UNC Press, 2022), which connects the dots of our 21st century housing crisis, from HGTV reality shows (with titles like Flip or Flop, Hot Mess House, etc.), to Airbnb real estate moguls and the new era of working from home. How did buying, selling, and living in houses become such a social, cultural, and economic war zone?

Check out the Nostalgia Trap YouTube Channel: youtube.com/boozeshaman

Subscribe to our Patreon: patreon.com/nostalgiatrap

This week Justin and I talk about China's Zero Covid policies coming apart as Apple demands MORE IPHONES, which leads to a wider consideration of what it means when a state drives people from the farms to the factories. Plus, we reflect on Ye's new Christofascism in the context of violence against LGBTQ+ communities, as we ponder how to confront an enemy that LOLs at the damage they create.

Listen to the whole episode: patreon.com/posts/livestream-12-9-75725406