Episodes
6 hours ago
6 hours ago
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How was “happiness” a policy concern – and when did it disappear and why?
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What’s going on with universities and their focus on the mental health of students?
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Is there much emotion about, in a romantic sense of deep feeling?
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Or is it emotion ersatz, instrumentalised, superficial, sentimentalised?
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How does affect polarise politically Left and Right?
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Can we solve the crisis of subjectivity by focusing on the self?
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And who is the Big-Ass Subject?
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Significant Emotions: Rhetoric and Social Problems in a Vulnerable Age, Ashley Frawley, Bloomsbury
4 days ago
4 days ago
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How is imagined different from imaginary?
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Did nations emerge first in Latin America?
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Does Anderson's account of print capitalism still apply – and is it more valid than ever?
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Are we really in a post-national era?
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Does Anderson underestimate the political side – the project of achieving your 'own' state?
7 days ago
7 days ago
- How does Portugal see itself, with regard to Europe, and its own history?
- How did the right-populist Chega party break through amid high turnout?
- What kind of anti-politics did Chega bring to the table?
- Is there nostalgia for the dictatorship?
- How did immigration become an issue in a country where emigration is the big problem?
- What is going on with Portugal's huge housing crisis?
- Why has the EU disappeared as a political issue, 10 years on from the peak of the crisis?
Bungacast is expanding, with new regular contributors, partnership with Damage magazine and more. Read about it here or see the video.
- In Portugal’s Election, the Center Left Struggles to Hold On, João Murta & Guilherme Rodrigues
- Europe After Brexit, Bungacast live event, ft. Catarina Principe + others
7 days ago
7 days ago
Regular contributors are coming on-board: Catherine Liu, Amber Frost, Alex Gourevitch, and Leigh Phillips
Tuesday Mar 05, 2024
/395/ A Coup From Within the Computer ft. Benjamin Studebaker (excerpt)
Tuesday Mar 05, 2024
Tuesday Mar 05, 2024
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Was left-populism a media event?
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Was the Millennial Left just a moment in internet history?
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Having bought into the internet's possibilities, can we abandon it?
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Does it make sense to speak of a "millennial" left?
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Faced with so many dead ends, do we need to "go monastic"?
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The Millennial Left as a Moment in Internet History, Benjamin Studebaker
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Omelets with Eggshells: On the Failure of the Millennial Left, Alex Hochuli, American Affairs. Additional comments on Alex's Substack
Tuesday Feb 27, 2024
UNLOCKED /382/ Death of the Millennial Left ft. Chris Cutrone
Tuesday Feb 27, 2024
Tuesday Feb 27, 2024
- Why define it as the "Millennial" Left?
- Was the anti-Stalinism of leaderless protests a good thing?
- Did the talk of "winning" from 2015 onwards represent maturity?
- Should the turn to a more public, statist capitalism make us more optimistic?
- How will the 'lawfare' used against Trump play out?
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The Millennial Left is dead, Chris Cutrone, Platypus
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The Death of the Millennial Left: Interventions 2006-2022, Chris Cutrone, Sublation
Tuesday Feb 20, 2024
/393/ Emotion Sickness: The Politics of Feelings (I) ft. Nina Power
Tuesday Feb 20, 2024
Tuesday Feb 20, 2024
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Do we complain too little or too much? Should we be more repressed?
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Political passions were meant to be dead. Has anger overtaken apathy?
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Should we hate our enemies? Is that okay?
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Has contemporary society become hysterical?
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Why does everyone want to be a victim today? How does this relate to self-interest?
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Is evil a psychological concept?
For part two, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast
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What Do Men Want?: Masculinity and Its Discontents, Nina Power, Penguin Books
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Political Ponerology, Andrew Lobaczewski, Red Pill Press (pdf)
Friday Feb 16, 2024
/392/ The Biggest Country No One Talks About (II) ft. Michael Vann
Friday Feb 16, 2024
Friday Feb 16, 2024
- How did Prabowo go from wannabe fascist dictator to cuddly populist grandpa?
- Why is Jokowi "Indonesia's Obama"?
- What is Indonesia's Trump/Hunter Biden ticket?
- What's up with the $32bn new capital being built in Borneo?
- What is the Museum of Anticommunism, and how successfully has Indonesia's ruling class rewritten its history?
- Plus: why is metal so popular in Indonesia?
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Suharto’s Old Guard Is Still Calling the Shots in Indonesia, Michael Vann, Jacobin
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Shadow Puppets and Special Forces: Indonesia’s Fragile Democracy, Michael Vann, The Diplomat (on police v military clashes)
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Indonesia state apparatus is preparing to throw election to a notorious massacre general, Allan Nairn, The Intercept
Tuesday Feb 13, 2024
Excerpt: /391/ Aufhebonus Bonus - Feb 2024
Tuesday Feb 13, 2024
Tuesday Feb 13, 2024
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Palestinians as surplus population
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Peripheral countries as 'imitators'
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Whether Brexit has led to greater political accountability
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Why Ridley Scott sucks
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Why contemporary art sucks
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Bonapartism and techno-populism
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Romanticising dead workers - and old social-democrats
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Esoteric knowledge about how the world *really* works
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Lenin's Lesson for Western Liberals, Philip Cunliffe, UnHerd
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Why the Tories Are Blowing Brexit, George Hoare, The Northern Star
Friday Feb 09, 2024
/390/ The Biggest Country No One Talks About ft. Vedi Hadiz
Friday Feb 09, 2024
Friday Feb 09, 2024
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What was the authoritarian order that followed the 1965 anti-communist massacres?
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How did the Asian financial crisis lead towards democratisation – and how did the old oligarchy manage to retain much of its power?
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How has Indonesia become "Islamified", and what is "Islamic populism"?
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How do class and ethnicity/religion interact in Indonesia? Who speaks for the "downtrodden"?
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Is the upcoming election a contestation between oligarchic populisms?
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Marketing Morality in Indonesia's Democracy, Vedi Hadiz, East Asia Forum
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The demise of the left and the Islamisation of dissent in Indonesia, Vedi Hadiz, Melbourne Asia Review (video)
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Indonesia’s 2024 Presidential Election Could Be the Last Battle of the Titans, Carnegie Endowment
Tuesday Feb 06, 2024
/388/ Betting on Bukele (I) ft. Nelson Rauda / Juan Rojas
Tuesday Feb 06, 2024
Tuesday Feb 06, 2024
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El Salvador’s Bitcoin Paradise Is a Mirage, Nelson Rauda, NYT
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Behind Bukele's Revolution, Juan Rojas & Geoff Shullenberger, Compact
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On Security, Bukele and Petro Have a Problem in Common, Juan Rojas, Americas Quarterly
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In response to killings, El Salvador’s bitcoin president attacks civil liberties, Nelson Rauda, LA Times
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The Rise of Nayib Bukele, El Salvador's Authoritarian President, Jonathan Blitzer, New Yorker
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Chaos in Ecuador, Guillaume Long, Sidecar/NLR
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¡Viva la ‘eficracia’!, Martin Caparrós, El País
Tuesday Jan 30, 2024
/387/ Get Fungal to Save Culture ft. Lias Saoudi (Fat White Family)
Tuesday Jan 30, 2024
Tuesday Jan 30, 2024
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Why are the kids taking less drugs?
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Can we respond to our nihilistic times with nihilistic art?
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What is the nature of conformity today?
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How to challenge conformity without sneering at the masses?
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Is there a romantic revival going on? Why is Lias interested in Ivan Illich?
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If living cheaply in big cities is now very difficult for artists, will something new emerge from the provinces?
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Ten Thousand Apologies: Fat White Family & the Miracle of Failure, Lias Saoudi & Adelle Stripe, White Rabbit Books
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Punk's spirit is broken, Lias Saoudi, UnHerd
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Is modern medicine making us sick?, Lias Saoudi, UnHerd
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Forthcoming album: Forgiveness Is Yours
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/353/ Bunga Sells Out ft. Jason Myles - on music and the spectacle
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/359/ Apollo Gets High ft. Benjamin Fong - on drugs in America
Monday Jan 29, 2024
Excerpt: /386/ Reading Club: Globalisation (III & IV)
Monday Jan 29, 2024
Monday Jan 29, 2024
- How important was the neo-cons' Project for a New American Century?
- What were the long-term consequences of the Iraq invasion?
- What do we make of Arrighi's theoretical account of imperialism and the tension between territorial and capitalistic logics?
- Did the USA represent a "world state" after WWII, and how did it fail?
- What is the world-historic meaning of China’s development?
- Do we buy Arrighi’s attempt at a Smithean vision of inter-civilizational harmony?
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Adam Smith in Beijing:Lineages of the Twenty-First Century, Giovanni Arrighi
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/305/ Techno-Feudal Unreason - on 'political' capitalism and plunder
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/250/ Oil & Disorder ft. Helen Thompson - on imperialism, the world system and energy
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/195/ No Shock China ft. Isabella Weber - on China avoiding neoliberal shock-therapy
Tuesday Jan 23, 2024
/384/ Millennial Rule ft. Amber A'Lee Frost
Tuesday Jan 23, 2024
Tuesday Jan 23, 2024
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Why "millennial"? Does it make sense to talk in generational terms?
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What are the left's "perversions" as Amber sees them?
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'Occupy' was all leaderless, horizontalist crap. Why did Amber stick around?
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Bernie Sanders did not leave an organizational legacy – why?
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After the failure of left-populism, in US and Europe, was it all worth it?
At patreon.com/bungacast we continue discussing the problems of DSA, as well as look forward to the US election and ask whether there's a vibe-shift at Davos.
Links:
- Dirtbag
- OK Bunger! The Problem of Generations (5-part Bungacast docu-series on generations)
Tuesday Jan 16, 2024
/383/ Stare into the Abyss with Us ft. Juliano Fiori
Tuesday Jan 16, 2024
Tuesday Jan 16, 2024
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What was humanitarianism, and why was it the "last utopia"?
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What does humanitarianism look like in an era of multipolarity?
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Does Western liberal democracy have any gas left in it? What should we defend?
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What politics are generated by the prevailing sense of anxiety and melancholia?
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If modernity is over, do we need to reject all progressivism?
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And how do we orient around catastrophe without falling into the trap of emergency politics?