Nostalgia Trap

Tom DePaola is a Ph.D. candidate studying higher ed and academic labor at USC, and co-author (along with Adrianna J. Kezar and Daniel T. Scott) of the new book The Gig Academy: Mapping Labor in the Neoliberal University. He joins us to discuss the increasing precarity felt by academics and other workers at colleges across the country, and to explore the longer history of neoliberalism's devastating attack on both the ideological underpinnings and practical operation of American higher education.

Lavelle Porter is a writer and professor of English at CUNY's New York City College of Technology. He joins us to discuss his new book The Blackademic Life: Academic Fiction, Higher Education, and the Black Intellectual, which explores representations of black intellectual life from the Reconstruction Era to today. Along the way we touch on the lesser-known fictional works of W.E.B. DuBois, the rise of Black Studies on college campuses in the 1960s and 1970s, the complicated, tragic legacy of Bill Cosby, and the evolving conversation about higher education in 21st century hip hop.

Sarah Milov is a professor of history at the University of Virginia and the author of The Cigarette: A Political History. In this conversation, she describes how the intersection of private capital and state power combined (with astounding success) to promote the consumption of cigarettes to the American public, and how activists engaged ideas around public space, health, and consent to fight back.

Sarah Taber is a crop scientist and ex-farmworker with a wide knowledge of agricultural history and practice, which you can hear in action on her excellently-named podcast Farm to Taber. In this conversation, we talk about the role of the "farmer" in the American imagination and survey some of the most critical moments in the development of American food and farming policy.

Luke O'Neil is a writer whose work chronicles the dark edges of 21st century America, capturing the horrific tenor of our age in his incredible newsletter and in his latest book, Welcome to Hell World: Dispatches from the American Dystopia. From murderous cops and fascist dads to suicidal veterans and imprisoned children, O'Neil connects the dots of the American nightmare in a voice that's compelling and authentic and genuinely enraging. In this conversation, we talk about his path through the ugly landscape of new digital media and explore how the political and personal crash together in his work.