The Podcast for Social Research
From Plato to quantum physics, Walter Benjamin to experimental poetry, Frantz Fanon to the history of political radicalism, The Podcast for Social Research is a crucial part of our mission to forge new, organic paths for intellectual work in the twenty-first century: an ongoing, interdisciplinary series featuring members of the Institute, and occasional guests, conversing about a wide variety of intellectual issues, some perennial, some newly pressing. Each episode centers on a different topic and is accompanied by a bibliography of annotations and citations that encourages further curiosity and underscores the conversation’s place in a larger web of cultural conversations.
Show episodes
In episode 13 of (Pop) Cultural Marxism, Ajay and Isi ruminate on a largely dismal year in pop culture. Kicking off with a discussion of unexpected developments in the world of health insurance, the conversation turns to a number of broad trends that characterized culture this year: AI, long production cycles, platform
Podcast for Social Research, Episode 84: Paradise Lost and Its Revolutionary Afterlives — Orlando Reade in Conversation
In episode 84 of the Podcast for Social Research, recorded live at BISR Central, BISR faculty Rebecca Ariel Porte and special guests Alla Della Subin and Katie Kadue sat down with fellow faculty Orlando Reade for a sweeping conversation to parallel the breadth of the study that occasioned it: Orlando’s acclaimed new bo
In this episode we discussed our end-of-year Spotify Wrapped lists and what algorithmic listening means for us as subjects and social beings, mass culture's current expression in shared forms of circulation rather than in objects of attention held in common, the limits of poptimism, the sound of melancholy, experimenta
Episode 83 of the Podcast for Social Research features a live performance, at BISR Central, by chamber-pop outfit Big Bend, who played selections from their acclaimed third album Last Circle in a Showdown. After the performance, Big Bend vocalist, pianist, and songwriter Nathan Phillips sat down with BISR's Mark DeLuca
(Pop) Cultural Marxism, Episode 12: Megalopolis — or, the Decline and Miraculous Resurrection of American Empire
In episode 12 of (Pop) Cultural Marxism, Ajay and Isi tackle Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis (2024). Kicking off with a review of a few recent pop-cultural engagements—including an assemblage of classic vampire films (Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), among them), Mubi’s restoration of The Fall (2006), Elden R
Podcast for Social Research, Episode 82: The Worst Laid Plans — Initial Reflections on the U.S. 2024 Election
In episode 82 of the Podcast for Social Research, Patrick Blanchfield and Ajay Singh Chaudhary take up the dismal U.S. election results, what brought us here, what comes next, and more. With the excellent Nara Roberta Silva and Isi Litke unfortunately both out sick but present in spirit and mind Patrick and Ajay reflec