Bungacast

/478/ Should You Listen to Satan? ft. Orlando Reade

On revolution, epic poetry, John Milton, and freedom.

George and contributing editor Alex Gourevitch talk to Orlando Reade, who teaches English at Northeastern University London.  We discuss Orlando’s new book What In Me Is Dark: The Revolutionary Life of Paradise Lost and the history of readings of John Milton’s great epic poem.

• Is Paradise Lost a poem about darkness?

• What does a poem written in the seventeenth century have to tell us about the age of Trump and the contemporary Right?

• What can we learn about freedom today from the rebellious Satan in the poem? Or the disobedient Eve?

• What did Malcolm X get from the poem and why is Jordan Peterson so hot on epic poetry?

Links:

• What In Me Is Dark: The Revolutionary Life of Paradise Lost, Orlando Reade, Penguin

• John Milton’s Paradise Lost Mourned a Revolution Betrayed, Orlando Reade, Jacobin

• Why Is the Right Obsessed With Epic Poetry?, Orlando Reade, The Nation

/471/ Reforming the Deformed ft. Nathan Sperber & George Hoare

On Gramsci in the 21st century.

[Patreon Exclusive]

Sociologist Nathan Sperber and our own George Hoare talk to Alex H and Lee Jones about the new edition to their book, An Introduction to Antonio Gramsci: His Life, Thought and Legacy, which includes a new chapter on Gramsci's relevance to contemporary politics and events and a new section on Gramsci's influence on the New Right. We discuss:

• How does this book differ from other introductions to Gramsci?

• What is wrong with the post-Marxist, post-colonial or culturalist version of Gramsci?

• What are Gramsci's top 3 insights into politics?

• How has Gramsci been taken up by the political Right?

• How has Gramsci been used and abused by the Left? What to make of the post-Marxist radical democracy of Laclau and Mouffe ("left-populism")?

• Why is the concept of the "national-popular" that Gramsci takes from the Jacobins so important to rediscover?

/468/ Reading Club: Place 4 – Harvey

On David Harvey's The Condition of Postmodernity (1989).

[Patreon Exclusive - subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast]

We focus in particular on Part III: The Experience of Space and Time – and reflect on the general themes of this section. The central question is:

How do we rescue a sense of ‘place’ – in a political, forward-looking and future-oriented way – after the age of globalisation?

• The age of globalisation generated and emphasised placelessness. But if oppositional struggles need to start from a definite place, where is that?

• And how do they not get restricted by that same sense of place – that is, not becoming particular, nostalgic or backward-looking?

• And if walls are now being put up, halting globalisation, then does this provide a more propitious scenario for struggle?

/463/ Reading Club: Place 3 – Sennett

On The Fall of Public Man.

[Patreon Exclusive]

We continue working through the 2024/25 syllabus and the first theme, The Future of Place. We ask is politics possible without a sense of place. Here we discuss chapter 13, "Community becomes uncivilised", and deal with listener questions.

• How does the changed relationship between public and private impact notions of community and of place?

• How does the maintenance of impersonal relations signify 'civility'?

• Is impersonality really the summation of all the worst evils of industrial capitalism?

• What is wrong with yearning for community, or specifically “love of the ghetto, especially the middle-class ghetto”

• How does "fratricide" become "logical" when people use intimate relations as a basis for social relations? Why is fratricide "system-maintaining"?

Links:

• 2024/25 Bungacast Syllabus (with links to readings)

• Safe Space: Gay Neighborhood History and the Politics of Violence, Christina B. Hanhardt

• The Making of a New Political Subject, George Hoare, Café americain

/459/ Reading Club: Place 2 - Augé

On Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity

[For access, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast/membership]

We continue working through the 2024/25 syllabus with the first theme, The Future of Place, asking, is politics possible without a sense of place. We discuss Marc Augé's much-referenced 1992 work on 'non-places': airports, shopping malls, corporate hotels, motorways... We discuss:

• Are non-places proliferating, and what would this mean for society and politics?

• Are non-places the spatial accompaniment to post-politics, to the foreclosure of political contestation?

• Is the distinction between non-places and places/spaces useful?

• Is there anything to the notion of a hyper- or super-modernity?

• Is Augé too deterministic? Does he miss how non-places can be places for culture or politics?

Links:

• 2024/25 Bungacast Syllabus (with links to readings)

/458/ The Society of Pure Vibe ft. Anna Kornbluh

On immediacy, representation, and anti-politics.

Anna Kornbluh, professor of English and author of Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism talks to Alex about the cultural, political, and economic changes she refers to as 'immediacy'. We discuss:

• Is 'immediacy' just a vibe, or is vibe itself non-mediated?

• How does anti-representation in film, TV and books relate to anti-representation in politics?

• And can we relate culture immediacy to the 'material base'?

• How do Fleabag, Uncut Gems, and the turn to memoirs and autofiction exemplify immediacy?

• Why does self-disclosure fit so well with the data economy?

• In what way is contemporary anti-theory nihilistic and apologetic?

• How does the style of immediacy relate to Frederic Jameson's understanding of postmodernism?

• Is the desire to put everything private on show a response to alienation?

• And is the professionalisation of 'theory' a problem or solution?

Links:

• Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism, Anna Kornbluh, Verso

• Has culture become pure vibe?, Anna Kornbluh, Spike Art Magazine

• The Theory of Immediacy or the Immediacy of Theory?, Jensen Suther, Nonsite

• Embracing Alienation: Why We Shouldn't Try to Find Ourselves, Todd McGowan, Repeater

/443/ Nations, Globalisation & De-development: Reading Club (sample)

On Nations & Nationalism since 1870.

[Patreon Exclusive]

We start by dealing with your questions regarding last month's RC, on Stalin, Zhukhov and WWII.

Then we read and discuss Eric Hobsbawm's classic work in which he emphasises that nations are exclusively modern constructions. We discuss:

• How succulent Hobsbawm's account is

• Whether he was wrong about globalisation eclipsing nationalism – and why he argued this

• Whether the revolutionary-democratic aspects of nationalism can be rescued from its later ethnic-particularist elements

• What the relationship is between citizenship, patriotism and nationalism

• How nationalism intersected with revolution - and fascism

• And whether the nation is any more solid an exit from our political vacuum than whatever other postmodern BS

Links:

• Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, Eric Hobsbawm

• Film: Eric Hobsbawm: The Consolations of History, LRB

• Some reflections on 'The Break-up of Britain', Eric Hobsbawm, New Left Review (pdf)

• /421/ Who Are the Wrong Ukrainians? ft. Volodymyr Ishchenko

 

/432/ Median Left Thought and its Monsters ft. Ben Burgis (sample)

On Naomi Klein & Naomi Wolf and "political diagonalism"

Episode in association with Damage magazine. Patreon Exclusive.

Ben Burgis talks to Alex and George about his review in Damage of Naomi Klein's Doppelgangers. We discuss:

• Whether Naomi Klein is representative of the average left-wing position this century

• What Klein's trajectory and that of Naomi Wolf tell us about contemporary politics

• What is "pipiking" – Philip Roth's term for making everything a farce?

• What role do conspiracy theories play for the Right today? For the Left?

• What's wrong with the idea of "settlers" and "indigenous", and how does it play out with regard to Jews and to Native Americans?

• Are we right to hold up “proper left” and “proper right” as ideals to which the ideological confusion of our times should return?

   

Links:

• Left Identitarianism Is Also A Mirror World, Ben Burgis, Damage

• Ben Burgis' columns at Jacobin

• What comes after wokeness?, Alex Hochuli, Substack

• The Making of a New Political Subject, George Hoare, Café american

/429/ Reading Club: Treason of the Intellectuals (sample)

On Julien Benda's famous 1927 work.

[Patreon Exclusive]

We continue on the theme of 'Intellectuals and the Public' by discussing the often cited by little read The Treason of the Clerks. We ask:

• If Benda was responding to the intellectuals' role in the Dreyfus Affair and WWI, was he already a man out of his time?

• What are intellectuals' proper role in society? Can they be abstract universalist moralists?

• Benda laments the end of humanism – can we endorse this lament, even if things are too far gone now?

• Is Benda a centrist dad, urging us all not to get too passionate or engaged?

• How do Benda’s ideas related to Gramsci’s notion of the traditional versus the organic intellectual?

• If Benda was critical of the 'realism' of his day – as opposed to the detached ethics of pre-20th century intellectuals – how might we use Benda to critique the cynicism of today?

Readings:

• Treason of the Intellectuals, Mark Lilla, Tablet (from preface to new edition)

• The Treason of the Intellectuals, Niall Ferguson, The Free Press

• Julien Benda’s political Europe and the treason of intellectuals, Davide Caddedu

• Edward Said on imperialist hypocrisy on Kosova: The treason of the intellectuals, Green Left

/428/ The First Poaster (Vice) President? ft. Ryan Zickgraf

On JD Vance, Hillbilly Elegy, and arresting decline.

[For the full episode: patreon.com/bungacast]

We discuss the Netflix adaptation of vice-presidential nominee JD Vance's memoir – and the memoir itself – and what it tells us about the direction of US politics, Trump, and MAGA. We ask:

• What is Ryan's own anti-hillbilly elegy, drawn from his experience in Central Illinois?

• How far does the character in the film correspond with Vance’s public persona today? 

• How do we account for Vance’s political pivot – at least in rhetoric – from “lift yourself up by your bootstraps” meritocracy to pro-labour nationalism? 

• What will happen to rural/small-town US American life?

• Plus: Is reading books gay? Is a "hillbilly" just Hillary + Bill? And what is a horseshoe sandwich?

Links:

• The State of Illinois is Killing My Family, Ryan Zickgraf, Jacobin

• An anti-Hillbilly Elegy, Ryan Zickgraf, The Third Rail (Substack) 

• Hillbilly Elegy Doesn’t Reflect the Appalachia I Know, Cassie Chambers Armstrong, The Atlantic 

• Why the Left Gets J.D. Vance Wrong, Zaid Jilani, Compact

/425/ Reading Club: Russia's Imitation Democracy (sample)

On the late Dmitri Furman's account of post-Soviet Russia.

Patreon Exclusive: for the Reading Club, join for $12/mo and get access to ALL Bungacast content, incl. 4 exclusive, original episodes a month

We continue our discussions along this year's themes (rise and fall of nations; Russia past and present) by tackling Imitation Democracy: The Development of Russia's Post-Soviet Political System.

• Why has there been a revival in interest in the late Soviet and early post-Soviet period? And in the global 1990s in general?

• What does it really mean to be without-alternative?

• Why didn't democracy take hold in Russia? And why did it become an "imitation democracy" and not something else?

• How was Yeltsin a disaster? And what was Putin's appeal?

• Does 'Putinism' actually exist? Is it interesting or novel in any way?

• What happened after Furman's death and Russia's turn to "violent parody of the West"?

Readings:

• Imitation Democracy: The Development of Russia's Post-Soviet Political System, Dmitri Furman, Verso

• Imitation Democracies: The Post-Soviet Penumbra, Dmitri Furman, New Left Review (pdf)

• Imitation Democracy: Perry Anderson writes about Dmitri Furman’s analysis of Russia’s post-communism, Perry Anderson, London Review of Books

Listening Links:

• /114/ Reading Club: The Light That Failed - on the end of the "Age of Imitation"

• /270/ Russia vs the West ft. Richard Sakwa - on the endgame to war in Ukraine; and /271/ Russia vs the West (2) ft. Richard Sakwa - on the post-Soviet landscape

• /410/ Reading Club: Deutscher's Stalin - On Isaac Deutscher's classic Stalin: A Political Biography

• /421/ Who Are the Wrong Ukrainians? ft. Volodymyr Ishchenko - on post-Soviet Ukraine, from Maidan to war

 

Music: Éva Csepregi, "O.K. Gorbacsov", Hungaroton , WEA, High Fashion Music, Dureco

/410/ Reading Club: Deutscher's Stalin

On Isaac Deutscher's classic Stalin: A Political Biography.

 

[Patreon Tier III & IV Exclusive]

 

We start off dealing with your questions from the first two Reading Clubs of the year, before Phil takes us through the famous biography of the Soviet leader. We discuss:

• Deutscher's work in historical context

• Stalin’s parents' experience as serfs and the significance of his boyhood education in an Orthodox seminary

• How the oppression of the Russian Empire and the promises of Soviet industrialisation shaped young Stalin's lifecourse

• Whether, compared to other Bolshevik leaders, Stalin would have succeeded anytime, anywhere

• Was Stalin honest in his commitment to the revolution? Was Trotsky right that Stalin was just a cynic?

• How did Stalin compare to the other leaders at Yalta, such as the aristocratic Churchill?

• How do we compare Stalin to Cromwell or Napoleon?

• And what's behind cheeky internet Stalinism today?

Links:

• Message of the Non-Jewish Jew, Isaac Deutscher, Marxists.org

• On Orwell: 1984 - The Mysticism of Cruelty, Isaac Deutscher, Marxists.org

• I must start completely alone: Gonzalo Pozo on Isaac Deutscher’s wartime years in London, LRB

 

/401/ Modernity is Very Gay ft. Roger Lancaster

On Mexico, class, and sexuality. 

 

We welcome anthropologist Roger Lancaster onto the pod to talk about his new book, The Struggle to Be Gay – in Mexico, for Example.  

 

We discuss:

• How much is being gay tied to being modern? And conversely, how much of globalized culture is itself "gay"?

• Do you need to be middle class to be gay?

• Why did neoliberalism provide more sexual freedom than corporatism in Mexico? 

• How was Mexico ahead of the US in introducing ‘progressive neoliberalism’?

• Is now a time of freedom, or should we think of it differently?

In part two, we discuss AMLO's "synthetic" presidency, and the way peasant conservatism in central America has traditionally provided a boost to radicalism – and ask whether this is still the case.

 

Only available at patreon.com/bungacast.

 

See also: /180/ Bunga Bunga (but Gay) ft. Mark Simpson & River Page

/397/ Reading Club: Imagined Communities (sample)

On Benedict Anderson's classic Imagined Communities.

 

[Patreon Exclusive. Subscribe: patreon.com/bungacast]

 

Originally published in 1983, Anderson's account of the origins of nations is one of the most cited books in English in the humanities. In what ways does this diverse and inventive book still explain the world?

• How is imagined different from imaginary?
• Did nations emerge first in Latin America?
• Does Anderson's account of print capitalism still apply – and is it more valid than ever?
• Are we really in a post-national era?
• Does Anderson underestimate the political side – the project of achieving your 'own' state?

Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (pdf)

 

The Reading Club this year is dedicated to three themes: the rise and fall of nations; intellectuals and the public; Russia: past and present.

UNLOCKED /382/ Death of the Millennial Left ft. Chris Cutrone

On the missed opportunity of the 2010s.

 

Chris Cutrone of Platypus joins us to talk about his collection of essays, The Death of the Millennial Left. We discuss:

• 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?

Links:

• The Millennial Left is dead, Chris Cutrone, Platypus
• The Death of the Millennial Left: Interventions 2006-2022, Chris Cutrone, Sublation