Nostalgia Trap

Joe Clark is the author of News Parade: The American Newsreel and the World as Spectacle (University of Minnesota Press, 2020). In this conversation, he tells us how the newsreel developed in the 1930s and 1940s as both an aesthetic object and consumer product, as figures like Charles Lindbergh became focal points of an immense transformation in the relationship between current events, entertainment, and an audience increasingly positioned as passive consumers of history.  

This week Claudia joins us to consider the magical cinematic collaborations of John Carpenter and Kurt Russell. We discuss The Thing (1982), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), and Escape from L.A. (1996) alongside a host of other sci-fi/action films of the era. Beyond just gushing about our favorite scenes/lines/moments, we try to articulate what makes Carpenter's films so insanely rewarding, and explore how his trajectory in Hollywood gives us an object lesson in the intersection of art, radical politics, and capitalism. For full episode go to patreon.com/nostalgiatrap.

This week Claudia joins us to consider the magical cinematic collaborations of John Carpenter and Kurt Russell. We discuss The Thing (1982), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), and Escape from L.A. (1996) alongside a host of other sci-fi/action films of the era. Beyond just gushing about our favorite scenes/lines/moments, we try to articulate what makes Carpenter’s films so insanely rewarding, and explore how his trajectory in Hollywood gives us an object lesson in the intersection of art, radical politics, and capitalism. For full episode go to patreon.com/nostalgiatrap. 

Alicia Puglionesi is a writer and historian whose book Common Phantoms: An American History of Psychic Science tells the story of how researchers in the late 19th and early 20th century attempted to engage the outer limits of human consciousness, and how their efforts were written out of "legitimate" academic discourse. In this conversation, she explains how this lost history of psychic experimentation resonates in 21st century politics and culture.

Alicia Puglionesi is a writer and historian whose book Common Phantoms: An American History of Psychic Science tells the story of how researchers in the late 19th and early 20th century attempted to engage the outer limits of human consciousness, and how their efforts were written out of “legitimate” academic discourse. In this conversation, she explains how this lost history of psychic experimentation resonates in 21st century politics and culture.

Sam Adler-Bell is a writer and host of the excellent podcast Know Your Enemy. In this conversation, we discuss his recent piece in The Drift, "Doctor Do-Little: The Case Against Anthony Fauci," which takes aim at the political practice and philosophies of a figure who has become, for better or worse, the public face of America's pandemic response. Along the way, we examine Fauci's role in the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, his disastrous flip-flop on the efficacy of masks, and the wider implications of neoliberal "hero" discourse in the context of public health.

Sam Adler-Bell is a writer and host of the excellent podcast Know Your Enemy. In this conversation, we discuss his recent piece in The Drift, “Doctor Do-Little: The Case Against Anthony Fauci,” which takes aim at the political practice and philosophies of a figure who has become, for better or worse, the public face of America’s pandemic response. Along the way, we examine Fauci’s role in the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, his disastrous flip-flop on the efficacy of masks, and the wider implications of neoliberal “hero” discourse in the context of public health.  

Justin Rogers-Cooper joins us for a conversation about the Netflix true crime documentary series Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer. Our focus is on the elements of the Night Stalker story that the series largely avoids; specifically, the origins of Richard Ramirez's serial killer psychology and its connections to the history of Los Angeles and the American security state. From settler colonialism and indigenous genocide to atomic fallout and the ghosts of Vietnam, we examine the American West as a landscape of imperial violence, capable of reproducing endless permutations of murderous pathologies. For full episode go to patreon.com/nostalgiatrap.

Justin Rogers-Cooper joins us for a conversation about the Netflix true crime documentary series Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer. Our focus is on the elements of the Night Stalker story that the series largely avoids; specifically, the origins of Richard Ramirez’s serial killer psychology and its connections to the history of Los Angeles and the American security state. From settler colonialism and indigenous genocide to atomic fallout and the ghosts of Vietnam, we examine the American West as a landscape of imperial violence, capable of reproducing endless permutations of murderous pathologies. For full episode go to patreon.com/nostalgiatrap. 

It's our 250th episode (!) and historian Megan Kate Nelson joins us for a very Nostalgia Trap conversation about the deep, unresolved contradictions coursing through American history. Her latest book, The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West, reframes our vision of the Civil War, showing how westward expansion, abolitionism, and the extermination of indigenous peoples were folded into a nation-making project that determined the fate of a continent. Along the way we talk about epic battles in hot deserts, the desperate economy of water and whiskey, and why the Ken Burns version of the Civil War so urgently needs to be put to rest.