Episodes

Thursday Sep 19, 2024
/439/ We Can Shape Our Own Environment ft. Ted Nordhaus
Thursday Sep 19, 2024
Thursday Sep 19, 2024
On "eco-modernism".
Ted Nordhaus, co-founder and executive director of the Breakthrough Institute, talks to Leigh and Alex the 20th anniversary of "The Death of Environmentalism" and the 10th anniversary of "The Ecomodernist Manifesto". We discuss:
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The fundamental philosophical differences between "building-out" and "restraint".
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Whether industrial policy like the Inflation Reduction Act is in line with the ecomodern approach
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Why environmentalism differs in the US versus Western Europe
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Why modernisation gets lost in discussions on the environment
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What techno-optimism and what techno-fixes are
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What the Abundance Agenda is
Links:
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The Death of Environmentalism, Breakthrough Institute

Tuesday Sep 17, 2024
/438/ You Are Being Enlisted into the Culture War ft. Andrew Hartman
Tuesday Sep 17, 2024
Tuesday Sep 17, 2024
On the US culture wars, then and now.
Historian Andrew Hartman, author of A War for the Soul of America, talks to Alex about how US Americans have been sorted into cultural camps over the past fifty years. We discuss:
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Who started it? And who perpetuates it?
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What is the "culture" in the culture war? And is it a war, or a series of skirmishes?
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Is there something particularly American about culture wars?
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The culture wars have followed the breakup of liberalism – so, what comes next?
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Do culture wars necessarily presuppose identity politics?
Links:
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A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars, Andrew Hartman, UC Press
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The Culture Wars are Dead, Andrew Hartman, The Baffler

Thursday Sep 12, 2024
/437/ Climate Change Is Not an Information Problem ft. Holly Buck (sample)
Thursday Sep 12, 2024
Thursday Sep 12, 2024
On disinformation, misinformation and the popular will.
Holly Jean Buck, Assistant Professor of Environment and Sustainability at the University at Buffalo, joins us to talk about her recent pieces arguing that the climate movement's focus on disinformation is misguided. We discuss:
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What is disinformation and misinformation in the climate context?
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Are there parallels to be drawn with anti-disinfo campaigns on vaccines during the pandemic?
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How is the deterioration in trust in elites and scientific institutions to be responded to?
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What do Holly's focus groups tell her about popular views on climate politics?
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Does the return to industrial policy mean we should focus on "people who know how to make and run stuff"?
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And what is solar radiation management, carbon capture and storage, carbon dioxide removal, and related technologies?
Links:
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Obsessing Over Climate Disinformation Is a Wrong Turn, Holly Jean Buck, Jacobin
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A Climate Disinformation Focus Takes Us the Wrong Way, Holly Jean Buck, Jacobin
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Of Course "Misinformation" Isn’t the Cause of Climate Change, Alex Tremblath, Breakthrough Institute
Books:
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After Geoengineering: Climate Tragedy, Repair, and Restoration, Holly Jean Buck, Verso
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Ending Fossil Fuels: Why Net Zero is Not Enough, Holly Jean Buck, Verso

Tuesday Sep 10, 2024
/436/ Slovakia's Four World Directions ft. Dominik Zelinsky
Tuesday Sep 10, 2024
Tuesday Sep 10, 2024
On corruption, charisma, populism & assassination in Slovakia.
Slovak sociologist Dominik Zelinksy joins us to discuss Slovakia's positioning between East and West. We discuss:
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Why was Prime Minister Robert Fico a target of an assassination attempt?
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Whether Fico – not a zany outsider but a competent insider – is a "populist"
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Why Slovaks are not so anti-Russian, and why they are sceptical of NATO
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How has anti-corruption politics played a role
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What is "charismatic mimicry" and why have Western leaders aped Ukraine's Zelenskyy?
Links:
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Slovakia's election: "more than a fight between democracy and autocracy", Dominik Zelinsky, LeftEast
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Assassination Attempt Prompts Soul-Searching in Slovakia, Jakub Bokes, Jacobin
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Slovakia’s Election Result Is About Declining Living Standards, Not Just Ukraine, Jakub Bokes, Jacobin
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Charismatic Mimicry: Innovation and Imitation in the Case of Volodymyr Zelensky, Paul Joosse & Dominik Zelinsky, Sociological Theory. Thread on Twitter/X about the article

Thursday Sep 05, 2024
UNLOCKED: /419/ Who Owns Power ft. Fred Stafford
Thursday Sep 05, 2024
Thursday Sep 05, 2024
On the electricity grid and the institutions involved.
[Episode originally released only to subscribers on 20 June 2024. Join us at patreon.com/bungacast]
Fred Stafford, a STEM professional, a writer on energy and power, and an editor at Damage, talks to Alex and regular contributor Leigh Phillips about the utility of utilities and his recent essay in the second print issue of Damage, "Deinstitutionalized"./
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What actually is a utility: is it a question of ownership, structure, purpose..?
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How did the 70s energy crisis, neoliberal economics, and environmentalism create a perfect storm that broke up regulated utilities?
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How does the regulatory regime on energy in the US actually work?
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Why have environmentalists been so keen to line up with neoliberal deregulation and to attack utilities – in Europe as well as the US?
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Why should the left think about a restoration of the investor-owned utility model, and not just jump straight to public ownership?
Links:
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The Utility of Utilities, Fred Stafford & Matt Huber, Damage
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Big Public Power from the Atom, Matt Huber & Fred Stafford, Damage
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Power Loss: The Origins of Deregulation and Restructuring in the American Electric Utility System, Richard F Hirsch

Tuesday Sep 03, 2024
/435/ Reading Club: Stalin's General – Winning WWII (sample)
Tuesday Sep 03, 2024
Tuesday Sep 03, 2024
On Geoffrey Roberts’ 2013 biography of Field Marshal Zhukov.
Who was the Soviet general and architect of Soviet victory on the Eastern Front during the Second World War? We discuss:
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What does Zhukov’s life tell us about modern warfare?
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What can we learn about the life and fate of the Soviet regime?
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How should we view the Ukraine war and renewed geopolitical rivalry between the West and Russia today?
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What are the popular perceptions and folk memories of world war?
Links:
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Stalin's General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov, Geoffrey Roberts
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Saving Private Ivan, Mike Davis, The Guardian
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Negotiate Now, or Capitulate Later: Ten Incentives for Ukraine to Make Peace with Russia, Geoffrey Roberts, Brave New Europe
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Putin’s Trump Card: Ukrainian Membership of NATO, Geoffrey Roberts, Brave New Europe
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‘Now or Never’: The Immediate Origins of Putin’s Preventative War on Ukraine, Geoffrey Roberts, Journal of Military and Strategic Studies

Thursday Aug 29, 2024
/434/ Bodiless Bodies ft. Matthew Thompson & Jonny Gordon-Farleigh (sample)
Thursday Aug 29, 2024
Thursday Aug 29, 2024
On the NGO-isation of the state.
Researchers and writers Matthew Thompson and Jonny Gordon-Farleigh join us to discuss their recent Damage article with George Hoare.
Civil society was once occupied by popular forces that could function as a bulwark against both capitalist marketization and state authoritarianism. Today, it has been colonized by the NGO, which, in turn, colonizes our hollowed-out politics. We ask:
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What are 'private NGOs', and what are quangos?
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How has 'projectification' taken over?
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What does the NGOisation of society mean? How does this kill public accountability?
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What are concrete examples of this process?
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What comes next? Any possibility for resurrecting things like Working Men’s Clubs?
Links:
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Bodiless Bodies: The Rise of Para-Institutions, George, Matt & Jonny, Damage
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Reconstructing Public Housing: Liverpool’s hidden history of collective alternatives, Matthew Thompson
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The NGOization of the West, George Hoare, Café american

Tuesday Aug 27, 2024
/433/ Aufhebonus Bonus – August 2024 (sample)
Tuesday Aug 27, 2024
Tuesday Aug 27, 2024
On your questions & criticisms.
We respond with comments on episodes 420 to 432 and various other points you wanted to us to discuss. In this episode:
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Does our politics lack self-critique?
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When did the breakdown of the UK's political system begin?
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How hegemonic is "settler" discourse?
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Will there be a coup in France?
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Do we need more analysis of the PMC?
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How did victimhood become a means for the expression of political demands?
Links:
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The Making of a New Political Subject, George Hoare, Café americain
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Vulnerability as Ideology, Peter Ramsay, The Northern Star

Tuesday Aug 20, 2024
/432/ Median Left Thought and its Monsters ft. Ben Burgis (sample)
Tuesday Aug 20, 2024
Tuesday Aug 20, 2024
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:
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Whether Naomi Klein is representative of the average left-wing position this century
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What Klein's trajectory and that of Naomi Wolf tell us about contemporary politics
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What is "pipiking" – Philip Roth's term for making everything a farce?
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What role do conspiracy theories play for the Right today? For the Left?
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What's wrong with the idea of "settlers" and "indigenous", and how does it play out with regard to Jews and to Native Americans?
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Are we right to hold up “proper left” and “proper right” as ideals to which the ideological confusion of our times should return?
Links:
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Left Identitarianism Is Also A Mirror World, Ben Burgis, Damage
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What comes after wokeness?, Alex Hochuli, Substack
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The Making of a New Political Subject, George Hoare, Café american

Thursday Aug 15, 2024
/431/ The Myth of Monolithic China ft. Lee Jones & Shahar Hameiri
Thursday Aug 15, 2024
Thursday Aug 15, 2024
On the structure of the Chinese state and its external relations.
[Patreon Exclusive: for the full episode, go to patreon.com/bungacast]
We welcome back Lee Jones and Shahar Hameiri to reflect on the outcome of the recent plenum of the Chinese Communist Party and to ask who, if anyone beyond Xi Jinping, is calling the shots.
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How will the CCP respond to the US election?
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Why is China not a monolithic, integrated state in the way some think?
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How important is the the Sino-Russian alliance? Does it matter more to Russia or to China?
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What happened to "wolf-warrior diplomacy"? Is it still a thing?
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What's going on economically with the property bubble, and with Chinese manufacturing over-capacity?
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Should we be worried about WWIII over Taiwan or the South China Sea?
Links:
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China’s plenum must offer action not rote slogans, Financial Times
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Views of China and Xi Jinping in 35 countries, Pew Research Centre
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Fractured China: How State Transformation is Shaping China’s Rise, Lee Jones & Shahar Hameiri

Tuesday Aug 13, 2024
/430/ Welcome to the Tourist Age ft. Marco d'Eramo
Tuesday Aug 13, 2024
Tuesday Aug 13, 2024
On the tourist city, the tourist industry, and its critics.
Renowned Italian journalist Marco d'Eramo joins us to talk about his wide-ranging inquiry into the age of tourism, The World in a Selfie. We also discuss how migration is the obverse of tourism, and take a look at Marco's most recent book, Masters, on the neoliberal revolution from above.
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Why is hating tourists the main characteristic of being a tourist? Why is the tourist/traveller dichotomy a false one?
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What is the threshold for a city becoming a place that exists primarily for tourists?
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How should we understand tourism economically, and why is the tourist city a mono-industry?
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Is the "authentic" travel experience ever possible?
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Why do critiques of tourism so often slide into snobbery or outright class contempt?
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How is the city changing under the impact not just of "over-tourism" but rising rents, exclusions, and remote working?
Links:
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The World in a Selfie: An Inquiry into the Tourist Age, Marco d'Eramo, Verso
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Masters: The Invisible War of the Powerful Against Their Subjects, Marco d'Eramo, Wiley
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Barbed Wire, Marco D'Eramo, Sidecar
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The cost of Europe’s backlash against tourists, Barney Jopson, Financial Times

Tuesday Aug 06, 2024
/429/ Reading Club: Treason of the Intellectuals (sample)
Tuesday Aug 06, 2024
Tuesday Aug 06, 2024
On Julien Benda's famous 1927 work.
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:
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If Benda was responding to the intellectuals' role in the Dreyfus Affair and WWI, was he already a man out of his time?
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What are intellectuals' proper role in society? Can they be abstract universalist moralists?
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Benda laments the end of humanism – can we endorse this lament, even if things are too far gone now?
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Is Benda a centrist dad, urging us all not to get too passionate or engaged?
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How do Benda’s ideas related to Gramsci’s notion of the traditional versus the organic intellectual?
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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:
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Treason of the Intellectuals, Mark Lilla, Tablet (from preface to new edition)
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The Treason of the Intellectuals, Niall Ferguson, The Free Press
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Julien Benda’s political Europe and the treason of intellectuals, Davide Caddedu
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Edward Said on imperialist hypocrisy on Kosova: The treason of the intellectuals, Green Left

Thursday Aug 01, 2024
/428/ The First Poaster (Vice) President? ft. Ryan Zickgraf
Thursday Aug 01, 2024
Thursday Aug 01, 2024
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:
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What is Ryan's own anti-hillbilly elegy, drawn from his experience in Central Illinois?
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How far does the character in the film correspond with Vance’s public persona today?
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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?
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What will happen to rural/small-town US American life?
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Plus: Is reading books gay? Is a "hillbilly" just Hillary + Bill? And what is a horseshoe sandwich?
Links:
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The State of Illinois is Killing My Family, Ryan Zickgraf, Jacobin
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An anti-Hillbilly Elegy, Ryan Zickgraf, The Third Rail (Substack)
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Hillbilly Elegy Doesn’t Reflect the Appalachia I Know, Cassie Chambers Armstrong, The Atlantic
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Why the Left Gets J.D. Vance Wrong, Zaid Jilani, Compact

Tuesday Jul 30, 2024
/427/ Why Do We Make Our Emotions Match the Market? ft. Eva Illouz
Tuesday Jul 30, 2024
Tuesday Jul 30, 2024
On emotional capitalism + Israeli politics.
Renowned sociologist Eva Illouz joins us to talk about her recent book on the emotions of populism, and her work on the sociology of emotions in general. We discuss:
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Why have emotions become such a collective obsession?
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Where can you buy emotional commodities? What are influencers really selling?
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What emotions accompany victim culture?
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How is identity and victimhood linked in a way that allow us never to forgive or forget?
Plus:
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How has Netanyahu failed even on his own terms?
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How has Israeli populism channelled fear, disgust, resentment, and love?
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Why have Eva's views on the progressive left changed?
Readings & Links:
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The Emotional Life of Populism: How Fear, Disgust, Resentment, and Love Undermine Democracy, Eva Illouz
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Emotion Sickness: The Politics of Feelings, Bungacast series
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Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism, Eva Illouz
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/232/ Reading Club: Cold, Hard / Warm, Soft - on Eva's 'Cold Intimacies'
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The Global Left Needs to Renounce Judith Butler, Eva Illouz, Ha'aretz
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Israel Is Facing Existential Threats From Inside and Out. There's One Solution, Eva Illouz, Ha'aretz
Subscribe: patreon.com/BungaCast
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Tuesday Jul 23, 2024
/426/ Expropriate the Canon ft. Catherine Liu (sample)
Tuesday Jul 23, 2024
Tuesday Jul 23, 2024
On the disaster of the culture wars.
Regular contributor Catherine Liu is back on to talk about her essay in Damage, issue 2, "Professional Populists in the Culture Wars". We discuss:
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What were the original 'culture wars' and how are they different to today?
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Why are the "academic populists" more elitist than anyone?
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Was there a need in the 1980s to "disrupt" the humanities?
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Why does conservatism now need to wear "populist" clothes?
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How should we defend the "canon"?
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What is the "Catherine Liu Foundation for Attacking Badness"?
Links: