In this episode, Sophie Lewis, Danya Glabau, and Paige Sweet hold a conversation in honor of Sophie's new book, Femmephilia: Love Letters to Trans Mermaids, Queer Mothers, and Marilyn Monroe. Since at least the 1970s, a dominant strand of Western feminism has regarded femininity with suspicion, if not outright hostility. Given this "feminist machismo," which is an obstacle to liberation, what would it mean to interpret the world through a femmmephilic lens? This discussion takes up questions of power, pleasure, and care labor, as well as feminism's relationships to race, gender, and sexual identity. It asks how to formulate a femme-inism capable of countering contempt for "girly things" in a moment of anti-feminist backlash and argues for a reorientation of collective work towards an effective critique of capital and coercion.

In this episode of the Podcast for Social Research Anna Kornbluh and Kate Wagner consider the aesthetics of contemporary American fascism in a conversation moderated by BISR's Audrey Nicolaides. The fascism of the moment merges violent delight in destruction with nouveau riche vulgarity, middle class mediocrity, and internet meme culture. Despite incessant callbacks to the 1930s and continued deployment of classic fascist themes, contemporary fascism distinguishes itself from its historical predecessors by its speed, virulence, sites of production, and mode of distribution: the big, beautiful slop machine, hyper-capitalized, decentralized, and algorithmically determined. How does the aesthetic regime of contemporary fascism function? How is it rewiring the libidinal economy of the present, and stacking the deck for capital? What's specific to fascism in the age of polycrisis? What does it mean now to resist by "politicizing aesthetics," as Walter Benjamin once enjoined us to?

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This episode was produced by Gil Morejon from live audio recorded at Chicago's Twelve Ten Gallery.

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The artist and writer Molly Crabapple joins journalist Spencer Ackerman and BISR's Suzy Schneider in coversation about her new book, Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund, which recreates the revolutionary world of the Bundists, and explores the interwoven histories of the Bund, the Russian Revolution, and the Holocaust. What can we learn, she asks, from this short-lived but influential socialist alternative to Zionism? What does this movement have to say about the past and future of the Jewish left, radical diasporas, the politics of assimilation, and the Bund's cultural and intellectual legacy. What can the transnational history of the Bund teach us about working-class organization, education, and culture? How can the Bund's radical vision of solidarity inform liberation struggles in the present?

You can download the episode by right-clicking here and selecting "save as." Or, look us up on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

This episode was produced by Ryan Lentini.

If you like what you've heard, consider supporting the podcast by becoming a BISR member or subscribing to Brooklyn Institute's Patreon page, where you can enjoy access to all past and future episodes of the Podcast for Social Research.

In this episode of the Podcast for Social Research, Suzanne Schneider and Soraya Batmanghelichi consider the current crisis in Iran, tracing its roots through the touchpoints of twentieth- and twenty-first-century Iranian history. Their conversation ranges over the origins of modern Iranian political and class structures from the eighteenth century to the present, European interventions in the Middle East, the role of the Iranian people in revolutionary change, Iran-U.S. relations and disjunctions, geopolitical fantasies about Iran and the part it plays as a regional actor, and the very human stakes of inhumane conflicts.

You can download the episode by right-clicking here and selecting "save as." Or, look us up on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

This episode was produced by Ryan Lentini.

If you like what you've heard, consider supporting the podcast by becoming a BISR member or subscribing to Brooklyn Institute's Patreon page, where you can enjoy access to all past and future episodes of the Podcast for Social Research.

In this shortcast edition of the Podcast for Social Research, recorded live as part of BISR's Occasional Evenings event series, BISR's Isi Litke and Rebecca Ariel Porte talk with documentarian Ted Kennedy about his film, B.F. Skinner Plays Himself, composed of found footage from a never-released educational film about the famed radical behaviorist. The conversation covers the political contexts for radical behaviorism, its legacies and missed opportunities, and the behaviorist resistance to psychoanalytic perspectives. The three also consider documentary aesthetics, working with found footage, and what studying Skinner as a documentary subject can teach us about the conditions that produce new behaviors.

This episode was produced by Ryan Lentini.

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Episode 94 of the Podcast for Social Research is a live recording of an event held at BISR Central to mark the publication of political theorist Roxanne Euben's Driven to Their Knees: Humiliation in Contemporary Politics (Princeton University Press). The text examining visual, verbal, and embodied rhetorics of humiliation across a wide variety of Arabic sources alongside related especially American examples, showing how humiliation is understood as the "imposition of impotence by those with undeserved power." Euben joins BISR faculty Ajay Singh Chaudhary and Suzanne Schneider for a wide-ranging conversation about the place of humiliation in contemporary politics. Together, the three ask: What sort of political projects does the experience of humiliation authorize? How does humiliation rhetoric encode and constitute gendered political subjects? And how might such rhetoric galvanize collective political struggle?

The Podcast for Social Research is produced by Ryan Lentini.

Learn more about upcoming courses on our website.

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Episode 93 of the Podcast for Social Research is a live recording of an event held at BISR Central to mark the publication of political theorist Alyssa Battistoni's Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature (Princeton University Press). Battistoni joins BISR's Ajay Singh Chaudhary and Nafis Hasan to discuss how capitalism, as a logic of seemingly relentless commodification, has nevertheless failed to assign value to vital aspects of the nonhuman world, from natural agents in industry to environmental pollution, reproductive labor in the household, and natural capital in the biosphere. Along the way, the three consider the similarities between labor exploitation and ecological exploitation; the Green Revolution in agriculture; the romanticization of nature; the place of reproductive labor in ecofeminist thought; and the case for understanding capitalism as a "planet-making system." What would it mean, they ask, to live freely while valuing nature's gifts?

In episode 19 of (Pop) Cultural Marxism, Isi and Ajay are joined by fellow BISR faculty Joseph Earl Thomas to discuss Ghost of Yotei, Sucker Punch Productions' much-anticipated sequel to Ghost of Tsushima. To kick off the episode, Isi and Ajay chat about recent cultural news and highlights, from the Japanese government calling on OpenAI to refrain from using anime and manga as training data, to the #SwiftiesAgainstAI campaign, to Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another (2025). Turning to Ghost of Yotei, Isi, Ajay, and Joseph consider where the game succeeds (its strong start, visual beauty, sharp soundtrack, and the satisfying chunkiness and texture of its combat scenes) and where it doesn't (its loadout system, simplistic puzzles, dearth of opportunities for stealth mode, and social and political quandaries its narrative and design raise). They explore the films and television shows that influenced Yotei—from Lady Snowblood and Samurai Champloo to the films of Takashi Miike, Akira Kurosawa, and Sergio Leone) and ask whether and where the game successfully incorporates cinematic techniques and conventions into its storyline. Along the way, they discuss the game's dicey depiction of the Ainu and the colonization of Hokkaido, consider whether the pleasure of open-world gaming has diminished or transformed in the years between Yotei and Tsushima, and interrogate the shape of the game's revenge plot.

(Pop) Cultural Marxism is produced by Ryan Lentini.

Learn more about upcoming courses on our website.

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Show notes

On Japan and OpenAI: https://www.ign.com/articles/japanese-government-calls-on-sora-2-maker-openai-to-refrain-from-copyright-infringement-says-characters-from-manga-and-anime-are-irreplaceable-treasures-that-japan-boasts-to-the-world

One Battle After Another, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (2025)

Other Paul Thomas Anderson films mentioned: Phantom Thread (2017), Inherent Vice (2014), The Master (2012), There Will Be Blood (2007)

Ghost of Yotei (Sucker Punch Productions, 2025)

Ghost of Tsushima (Sucker Punch Productions, 2020)

Way of the Samurai (Acquire, 2002)

Tenchu (Acquire/K2/FromSoftware, 1998-2009)

Samurai Champloo (2004)

Forspoken (Luminous Productions, 2023)

South of Midnight (Compulsion Games, 2025)

Infamous (Sucker Punch Productions, 2009-2014)

Blue Eye Samurai (2023)

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo, 1998)

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004)

Parul Sehgal, "The Case Against the Trauma Plot" (2021): https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/03/the-case-against-the-trauma-plot

Kuroneko, directed by Kaneto Shindo (1968)

Lady Snowblood, directed by Toshiya Fujita (1973)

Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance, directed by Toshiya Fujita (1974)

The Samurai Trilogy, directed by Hiroshi Inagaki (1954-1956)

In this shortcast edition of the Podcast for Social Research, BISR's Isi Litke and Jude Webre discuss Fritz Lang's Hangmen Also Die! (1947). Loosely based on the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, and conceived by Lang and Bertolt Brecht mere weeks after his death, the film follows members of the Czech resistance as they attempt to shield Heydrich's killer from Nazi authorities in occupied Prague. Conversation ranges from Lang and Brecht's fraught collaboration to Hanns Eisler's unconventional score, the film's attempts to sell a war-averse American public on the antifascist cause, the nature of Popular Front cultural objects, and the film's connection to the Hollywood blacklist. To what extent does Hangmen Also Die! succeed as propaganda, as procedural, and/or as epic theater? How does the film embody the tensions intrinsic to Popular Front coalitions? And what might the film teach us about antifascist politics and propaganda in our current moment?

The Podcast for Social Research is produced by Ryan Lentini.

Learn more about upcoming courses on our website.

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In episode 18 of (Pop) Cultural Marxism, Isi and Ajay spend some time with a handful of big news items at the intersection of politics and media—from the Skydance-Paramount merger (and other instances of media market concentration) and its implications for American newsmedia (and its potential new gatekeepers); to Charlie Kirk's assassination, its aftermath, its mediations with mass cultural objects (like alleged HellDivers II bullet etchings or Nepalese protestors with One Piece flags); the culture industry's failure to perform even its therapeutic function; and the growing exclusivity of once-accessible arts venues and performance spaces! A wide ranging discussion of summer media diets follows, beginning with Isi's recent love affair with the Western genre. The two discuss their shared fondness for Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone's many collaborations and the unmatched brilliance of HBO's Deadwood. Turning to the world of gaming, Ajay considers tragic endings (Expedition 33, the Death Stranding franchise), slow gaming (Herdling), and the relationship between gaming and choreography (Split Fiction). Also under consideration: what Joe Wright's miniseries, Mussolini: Son of the Century, gets right about the fascist imaginary; what Len Wiseman's Ballerina gets wrong about the appeal of John Wick; and what Foundation and The Sandman suggest about the challenges of adaptation and the culture industry's recent predilection for a 21st century spin on classical tragedy. Along the way, they return repeatedly to a longstanding PCM preoccupation with medium-specificity as well as the general bleakness seeping into the cultural reflections of this historical moment.

(Pop) Cultural Marxism is produced by Ryan Lentini.

Learn more about upcoming courses on our website.

Follow Brooklyn Institute for Social Research on Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / Bluesky.