Nostalgia Trap

Van Jackson, foreign policy writer and host of the excellent podcast Un-Diplomatic [https://www.un-diplomatic.com/podcast], joins me to freak out about ICE arresting local college professors, MAGA's Jeffrey Epstein fissures, Andrew Cuomo aiming to spoil Mamdani's victory in NYC, Trump sending weapons to Ukraine, and the overall Third Reich vibes that America is currently giving. As the ever-rising waters of tyrrany begin to splash onto our windowsills, what are any of us supposed to be doing?  Subscribe to Nostalgia Trap to access all of our bonus content and News Trap updates [https://www.patreon.com/nostalgiatrap]

Remember the heady days of Abercrombie and Fitch’s utter domination of the young, white middle class fashion market? What was that about? This week I’m joined by Ethan Lascity, an assistant professor and director of the fashion media program at Southern Methodist University, to discuss his book The Abercrombie Age: Millennial Aspiration and the Promise of Consumer Culture [https://uncpress.org/book/9781469680910/the-abercrombie-age/]. Ethan helps me understand the wider historical context and significance of a very specific moment in American pop culture, when a vision of affluence was packaged and sold to a generation that would never actually attain it. Subscribe to Nostalgia Trap to access all our bonus episodes and News Trap updates [https://www.patreon.com/nostalgiatrap]

Anyone with a brain and heart probably feels deeply conflicted about the Fourth of July, a celebration of American freedom that frequently feels crass and hollow in the context of an ever-expanding American cruelty. So I thought I would reflect on the some ideas about drugs and counterculture today. I share some new details of the CIA's MKULTRA mind control experiments, and read Allen Ginsberg's eerily prophetic 1959 piece, "Poetry, Violence, and the Trembling Lambs or Independence Day Manifesto." [https://www.modernamericanpoetry.org/index.php/allen-ginsberg-independence-day-manifesto] Subscribe to Nostalgia Trap to access all our bonus content [https://www.patreon.com/nostalgiatrap]

Zohran Mamdani's win in NYC accelerates a civil war for the soul of the Democratic Party; ICE storm troopers refuse to take off their masks; Trump's bombing of Iran within the larger strategic maneuverings of world powers; the historical ingredients necessary for getting away with genocide. Listen to the full episode here! [https://www.patreon.com/posts/news-trap-6-27-w-132500388]

Xaq Frohlich [https://cla.auburn.edu/directory/xaq-frohlich] is Associate Professor of History of Technology at Auburn University. His work focuses on issues relating to food and risk at the intersections of science, law, and markets. In this conversation, he joins me to discuss his book From Label to Table: Regulating Food in America in the Information Age [https://www.ucpress.edu/books/from-label-to-table/paper], a fascinating history of how Americans have navigated food and health issues through culture and politics. From Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle to RFK, Jr. and “MAHA Moms,” let’s take a journey through America’s always evolving and often conflicted attitudes toward eating, agriculture, government regulation, and human health.  Check out the Nostalgia Trap Patreon page to access our News Trap and SCREENSHOTZ, along with a whole library of bonus podcast episodes  [https://www.patreon.com/nostalgiatrap]