Episodes
Thursday Dec 28, 2023
[FROM THE VAULT] /161/ Culture is Bad for You ft. Mark Taylor
Thursday Dec 28, 2023
Thursday Dec 28, 2023
FROM THE VAULT: GEORGE'S PICK (1)
Thursday Dec 28, 2023
[FROM THE VAULT] /46/ Exiting Capitalist Realism
Thursday Dec 28, 2023
Thursday Dec 28, 2023
FROM THE VAULT: PHIL'S PICK (2)
The third in our Neoliberal Breakdown series. In which we discuss the late Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism, 10 years on. Does his analysis still hold? The mood music of the time - the age of 'TINA' and the end of history - was acutely described by Fisher. But did it only really describe Britain? And has the world now entered a new period?
Readings:
Capitalist Realism http://www.zero-books.net/books/capitalist-realism
'Exiting the Vampire Castle' https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/mark-fisher/exiting-vampire-castle
Mark Fisher's k-punk blog https://k-punk.org/
Cover image: 📸 Stephanie Jung
Thursday Dec 28, 2023
[FROM THE VAULT] /136/ Banana Monarchy ft. David Edgerton
Thursday Dec 28, 2023
Thursday Dec 28, 2023
FROM THE VAULT: PHIL'S PICK (1)
On British decline.
Much ink has been spilled over the Britain’s fate since the end of its empire. Could it be that decline has been overstated? And what will happen to Britain as it leaves the European Union? We discuss how the history of the Industrial Revolution and Cold War militarism still shapes British politics today, as David Edgerton joins us to talk about the his latest book, 'The Rise and Fall of the British Nation'.
Readings:
- A misremembered empire, David Edgerton, Tortoise
- Britain’s 20th-century industrial revolution, Colin Kidd, New Statesman (review of Edgerton's book)
- Britain's persistent racism cannot simply be explained by its imperial history, David Edgerton, The Guardian
Tuesday Dec 19, 2023
/381/ Contemporary Art: Inane Spectacle & Pompous Discourse, ft. JJ Charlesworth
Tuesday Dec 19, 2023
Tuesday Dec 19, 2023
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Why is art no longer about beauty?
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Are we stuck between art that is either superficial or hyperpolitical?
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Why has there been a turn towards the mystical and irrational in art?
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How are ideas of the indigenous and the ecological represented in art today?
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Is there a romantic revolt against reason and is it new?
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The Return of Magic in Art, JJ Charlesworth, Art Review
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Gabriel Massan’s Decolonial Games, JJ Charlesworth, Art Review
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The naked truth about Marina Abramović – her ‘art’ is a joke, JJ Charlesworth, Telegraph
Tuesday Dec 12, 2023
Excerpt: /380/ Josephine’s Body Count
Tuesday Dec 12, 2023
Tuesday Dec 12, 2023
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Why did Scott choose to focus on Napoleon's relationship with Josephine?
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What is Scott trying to say, if anything, about Napoleon and the Napoleonic wars?
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Where are the depictions of youth, revolution and modernity?
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Are there any redeeming aspects to the film?
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What do we make of Phoenix's portrayal?
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Are we seeing the return of films about Great Men of History?
Tuesday Dec 05, 2023
/379/ Sexy Pictures of Taylor Swift (Not Brexit)
Tuesday Dec 05, 2023
Tuesday Dec 05, 2023
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Why all the fuss for Brexit, when things have ended up the same as they were before?
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Why Brexit when the same politicians are still in charge?
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Why was no section of society able to lead Brexit with a positive vision of the future?
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Did Brexiteers need a more concrete proposal beyond "democracy"?
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What lessons can be learned from Brexit by others in the EU?
Saturday Dec 02, 2023
Excerpt: /378/ Reading Club: Globalisation (II)
Saturday Dec 02, 2023
Saturday Dec 02, 2023
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Are you 'Team Brenner' or 'Team Arrighi'?
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Was neoliberalism a counter-revolution? A passive revolution? A restoration?
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How does the depression of the 1870s compare to that of the 1970s or the post-2008 period?
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What are the characteristics of our own Belle Époque (1993-2007)
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What matters more in explaining the downturn: inter-capitalist global competition? Upward wage pressure? The role of the global South?
Tuesday Nov 28, 2023
/377/ The Locked-Up Country ft. Shahar Hameiri & Tom Chodor
Tuesday Nov 28, 2023
Tuesday Nov 28, 2023
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Was the pandemic another success for the 'lucky country'?
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How was the Australian state transformed from the 1970s to the 2020s?
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Why was Australia's pandemic planning inadequate?
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What was up with the hotel-based quarantines?
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Why did the public largely support these measure?
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And what can the rest of the world learn from the experience?
Monday Nov 20, 2023
Excerpt: /376/ AufheBonus Bonus - Nov 2023
Monday Nov 20, 2023
Monday Nov 20, 2023
Tuesday Nov 14, 2023
Excerpt: /375/ From Hyperliberalism to the Grayzone
Tuesday Nov 14, 2023
Tuesday Nov 14, 2023
- How does John Gray use Hobbes and the idea of a Leviathan?
- What is a "state of nature", and what would an artificial state of nature be?
- Is Gray right in this characterization of liberalism?
- Is hyperliberalism the product of liberalism's decay?
- What is postliberalism and how does Gray’s project fit with it?
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Pseudo-Leviathans, George Hoare, Damage
Tuesday Nov 07, 2023
/374/ You’re Gonna Need Representation ft. Vincent Bevins
Tuesday Nov 07, 2023
Tuesday Nov 07, 2023
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Why were protests in places that were so different all look so similar?
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Why was there such a focus on spontaneity, leaderlessness, peformativity, and horizontalism?
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What are some examples of the ways protests rejected representation?
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Was class or generation more important in driving these protests?
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Why did media becomes so important in pursuing political change?
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How can we avoid a repeat of the failures of the 2010s?
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If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution, Vincent Bevins, Public Affairs
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The mass protest decade: why did the street movements of the 2010s fail?, Vincent Bevins, The Guardian
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The End of the End of History: Politics in the 21st Century, Bungacast authors, Zer0 Books
Tuesday Oct 31, 2023
Excerpt: /373/ Take a Stand: Be Neutral! ft. Lily Lynch
Tuesday Oct 31, 2023
Tuesday Oct 31, 2023
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Why did Sweden and Finland give up decades of neutrality - and why now?
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What happens with an enlarged alliance in light of the conflict in Ukraine?
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How does the current moment compare to the apogee of the Non-Aligned Movement?
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Why were the realists right?
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How is tech mythology helping to build 'digital nationalism'?
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Why is there beef over grain between Poland and Ukraine?
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And what the hell are the "skin suit of social democracy" and the "Waluigi of neutrality"?
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Joining the West, Lily Lynch, Sidecar
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The realists were right, Lily Lynch, New Statesman
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The EU’s great power delusions, Lily Lynch, New Statesman
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Guns, grain, and history, Lily Lynch, New Statesman
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Tech-Mythologies, Lily Lynch, Sidecar
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Imperfect Unity, Lily Lynch, Sidecar
Monday Oct 30, 2023
Excerpt: /372/ Reading Club: Globalisation (I)
Monday Oct 30, 2023
Monday Oct 30, 2023
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What's at stake in thinking of East Asian growth as a renaissance, or correction of the historical blip of European ascendency?
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How compelling is the account of East Asian success as a fusion of industrious and industrial revolution?
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Was Arrighi right to focus on the neoconservative Project for a New American Century?
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What do we think about Adam Smith's account of different classes' capacity for political action
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What's at stake in the revisionist view of Adam Smith as pro-state Enlightenment thinker rather than patron saint of the free market?
Subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast
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The Left Hemisphere: Mapping Critical Theory Today, Razmig Keucheyan, Verso (2010)
Tuesday Oct 24, 2023
/371/ The Milei Massacre Didn’t Happen ft. Ernesto Seman
Tuesday Oct 24, 2023
Tuesday Oct 24, 2023
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What is 'Peronism' and how does it occupy so much political space?
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How does Milei appeal to informal workers using market ideology?
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What is distinct about Latin American populism?
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How is anti-populism used to denigrate the masses?
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What is the role of nostalgia for the golden age in Argentina?
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In Chile and Argentina, anti-populist politics is failing, Ernesto Seman, FT
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Breve historia del antipopulismo (Brief History of Antipopulism), Ernesto Seman
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Ambassadors of the Working Class, Ernesto Seman
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Javier Milei is not done yet, Alex Hochuli, Unherd
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Javier Milei is not a South American Trump, Alex Hochuli, Unherd
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/367/ Don’t Pay Them Back ft. Jerome Roos
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/189/ Pink Tide Paradoxes ft. Fabio Luis
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/93/ Hot Chile and Other Neoliberal Failures ft. Pablo Pryluka
Friday Oct 20, 2023
/370/ Dead Ends in Israel & Palestine ft. Alex Gourevitch
Friday Oct 20, 2023
Friday Oct 20, 2023
- why Hamas was becoming irrelevant and how the 7 October attack was an attempt to combat that;
- why violence is necessary but the Palestinians are in a catch-22;
- how the West is implicated in the violence and callousness on show;
- why the Palestinians are the most oppressed and forgotten people;
- why Hamas is not an anticolonial freedom struggle; and
- what is the right way to compare this to Ukraine.
- No end in sight: Israel’s search for a Gaza strategy, Lawrence Freedman, FT (attached)
- The House of Zion, Perry Anderson, NLR
- Whither Palestine, David Polansky, Strange Frequencies