Episode 92 of the Podcast for Social Research features fusion folk trio Ghost Peppers in concert at BISR Central, playing songs old and new, including selections from their newly released EP Red. After the performance (44:00), the three Ghost Peppers — tabla player Ritam Bhowmil, guitarist Kevin Meehan, and vocalist (and BISR faculty) Amrita Ghosh — sat down with BISR’s Hannah Leffingwell and scholar Sara Kazmi for a wide-ranging conversation about cultural and musical fusion, and the histories, both personal and political, that surround it. What happens when classical South Asian rhythms are “fused” to rock, reggae, or Americana song structures? What kind of sonic imaginaries does fusion music evoke or produce, both across regions and within a partitioned South Asia? How can we distinguish fusion from cultural appropriation? Amidst political (and geopolitical) inequality, can musical traditions be combined “equally”? Finally, can Tagore be sung in a bar? The Podcast for Social Research is produced by Ryan Lentini. Learn more about upcoming courses on our website. Follow Brooklyn Institute for Social Research on Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / Bluesky. Artwork: Bharti Kher, Algorithm for Hiding
In this episode of Faculty Spotlight, hosts Mark and Lauren sit down with faculty Alfred Lee and Xafsa Ciise, colleagues whose shared concerns—with race, bias, politics, human consciousness, and the history of science—have cultivated a fascinating and fruitful cross-disciplinary conversation. Xafsa, a social psychologist by training, kicks off the conversation with description of how she found her way into a historical investigation of trauma and its discourses, after which Alfred, a physicist by training and data scientist in practice, details the social and political questions that animate his concern with digital innovation and data applications. Along the way, their conversation touches on the surprising origins of trauma in mesmerism and animal magnetism; the experimenter’s effect; simulation and deception in both trauma studies and AI discourse; scientism’s bracketing of politics, and politics’ return by way of history; conflicting concepts of “intelligence”; contextuality and relationality versus the conceit of universality; Freud, Fanon, and how psychoanalysis thinks about Blackness; the return of eugenics and race IQ discourses; longtermism and what a view to the far-distant future implies about the present; and the dangerously autarkic character of big tech. The Podcast for Social Research is produced by Ryan Lentini. Learn more about upcoming courses on our website. Follow Brooklyn Institute for Social Research on Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / Bluesky.
Episode 91 of the Podcast for Social Research is a live recording of an event marking the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with BISR faculty Jude Webre, Suzanne Schneider, Hannah Leffingwell, and Alfred Lee each offering thoughts on the manifold legacies—literary, scientific, political (and geopolitical)—of August 6th and 9th, 1945. How, specifically, did the atomic bombs work, and what, specifically, did they do to the target cities and peoples? How did U.S. anti-war and feminist movements work to recover repressed domestic memories of the atomic bombings—and how do the politics of mourning (whose lives are eligible to be mourned?) impinge on the politics of race, gender, and class? Who gets to own nuclear weapons—and what justifies that ownership? Who is permitted to proliferate—and on what moral or political authority? What sort of historical rupture did the inauguration of nuclear weapons affect? Why do nuclear weapons resist prudential human control? Indeed, how do discourses of "inevitability," so often employed in debates around weaponry and A.I., inhibit democratic politics and practice?
Episode 90 of the Podcast for Social Research—TRANSgressions: Rights Wrongs, and Liberal Pieties—was recorded (mostly) live at BISR Central, as we celebrated Pride Month by asking: What happens when trans people in the public eye commit real or perceived wrongs? By what criteria—or liberal pieties or social justice aims—are these so-called wrongs evaluated? And what kind of trans experience even gets a public airing at all—why and in service of what? We submitted these questions to BISR faculty Sophie Lewis, Hannah Leffingwell, and Ruth Averbach, each of whom approached it in a way apropos of their own scholarly and activist priorities. The first voice you’ll hear is Sophie’s, speaking from Philadelphia about a very specific form of Enemy Transfeminism: Trans Zionism. Ruth picks up from there to track the ideologically bewildering reception of a counterrevolutionary trans writer in 19th century Russia. After which we hear from Hannah on how trans life has historically interacted with the clinic and been represented in film. In conversation with one another and with a live BISR audience, Ruth and Hannah then embark on a freewheeling conversation that touches on, among other persons and things, Representative Sarah McBride, attorney Chase Strangio, the recent Supreme Court decision on trans-affirming healthcare, and much else besides. The Podcast for Social Research is produced by Ryan Lentini. Learn more about upcoming courses on our website. Follow Brooklyn Institute for Social Research on Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / Bluesky.
In episode 72 of Practical Criticism, Ajay takes the somber occasion of Brian Wilson's recent death to play, for Rebecca, the Beach Boys's immortal track "God Only Knows"—a song Paul McCartney called the "greatest ever written." Is Sir Paul, for once, correct? Ajay and Rebecca ask after the song's technical perfection, noting its intermix of pop, jazz, and even Bach-esque baroque, while dwelling as well on its emotional ambiguity, barbershop polyphony, and inimitable quality of being at once light and airy yet incredibly substantial. Is "God Only Knows" the platonic ideal of pop? How can we think about "genius"—and its complicated avatar, Brian Wilson?
In episode 17 of (Pop) Cultural Marxism, Ajay and Isi once again find themselves in the regrettable position of praising the Walt Disney Company. After chatting about recent cultural highlights (Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a 40th anniversary screening of Kurosawa’s Ran, and a Criterion retrospective on Johnnie To), they consider the popular and critical success of Andor’s second season, and ask what it means to describe a pop cultural text as “politically timely.” Their conversation turns to extratextual ecosystems (press junkets, interviews), Gilroy’s deep engagement with cinematic depictions of fascism and rebellion (Army of Shadows, The Conformist), architecture and costume design, season 2 high points (the Ghorman Massacre, Mon Mothma’s Senate speech), the politics of revolutionary alliances, and imperial bureaucracy. Finally, they consider how the show makes the transition—narratively, visually, musically—into the lore-dense timeline of Rogue One and A New Hope, and ponder its uncharacteristically fascistic final scene. (Pop) Cultural Marxism is produced by Ryan Lentini. Learn more about upcoming courses on our website. Follow Brooklyn Institute for Social Research on Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / Bluesky Shownotes: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive) Ran, dir. Akira Kurosawa (1985) Exiled, dir. Johnnie To (2006) Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, dir. Jim Jarmusch (1999) Battleship Potemkin, dir. Sergei Eisenstein (1925) The Battle of Algiers, dir. Gillo Pontecorvo (1966) Army of Shadows, dir. Jean-Pierre Melville (1969) Jean-Paul Sartre, "The Republic of Silence" (1944) The Conformist, dir. Bernardo Bertolucci (1970) Sergey Nechayev, "Catechism of a Revolutionary" (1869) Laleh Khalili, "The Politics of Pleasure: Promenading on the Corniche" Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle Bertolt Brecht and Walter Benjamin on Brecht's "Epic Theater" McKenzie Wark, The Beach Beneath the City McKenzie Wark, A Hacker Manifesto
In episode 89 of the Podcast for Social Research, recorded live at BISR Central, BISR faculty Danielle Drori, Jude Webre, and Lauren K. Wolfe sat down following a screening of Stanley Kubrick’s controversial final film, Eyes Wide Shut, to discuss its long thirty years in the making, its source material in fin-de-siècle Vienna, and its vision of bourgeois marriage and sexual morality in turn-of-the-millennium New York. Kicking off with behind-the-scenes Hollywood details, Jude adumbrates an argument for the film as an auteur’s personal reverie, tracing resonances between it and the enigmatic story of Kubrick’s own (second) married life in postwar New York City; Lauren then lets us in on the lurid sexual obsessions of Arthur Schnitzler, on whose 1926 novella Dream Story the film is based, with the interpretive aid of W.G. Sebald; while Danielle guides us through a collective Freudian analysis of the dreams that run through and construct the film’s emotional core. With insightful and witty participation from the audience, the talk touches on masculinity within marriage; nudity and nakedness; coitus interruptus; Freud’s stages of sexual development; dream as unconscious communication; sex and death; fucking down and marrying up; Nicole Kidman as gay icon; and whether anything of substance appears to have changed in bourgeois sexual morality between circa 1900 and 1999. The Podcast for Social Research is produced by Ryan Lentini. Learn more about upcoming courses on our website. Follow Brooklyn Institute for Social Research on Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / Bluesky
In episode 16 of (Pop) Cultural Marxism, Isi and Ajay discuss the return of Tony Gilroy’s Andor. Before departing for a galaxy far, far away, they stop by the world of gaming to chat about Hazelight Studio’s latest co-op title, Split Fiction, and the impact of Trump’s tariffs on the rollout of Nintendo’s Switch 2. Turning to the first three episodes of Andor’s second season, Isi and Ajay discuss the show’s improbable presence in the Disney universe, the promises and perils of thinking with all-too-timely cultural objects, and formal and technical differences between seasons one and two. They then evaluate Gilroy’s attempt to balance the tone and feel of the original trilogy with a plausible account of fascist and imperial rule–one that explores the minutiae of bureaucratic hierarchy, financial audits, counterinsurgency tactics, fascist youth culture, the exploitation of undocumented workers, communication blackouts, and the fragility of political resistance. Along the way, they discuss Gilroy’s historical and filmic references, and the show’s resonances with long-time PCM favorite, Franz Neumann’s Behemoth. The Podcast for Social Research is produced by Ryan Lentini. Learn more about upcoming courses on our website. Follow Brooklyn Institute for Social Research on Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / Bluesky
For episode 88 of the Podcast for Social Research, BISR’s Rebecca Ariel Porte welcomed special guests—translator Katrina Dodson and songwriter and vocalist Lacy Rose—for an evening of reading, musical performance, and conversation honoring the enduring legacy of Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector. Occasioned by the release of Rose’s concept album Lispector, featuring the Starling Quartet, and Dodson’s Covert Joy, a selection of her translations of Lispector’s short stories, the three intersperse between reading and performance a discussion of Lispector’s work and the passionate attachments it inspires. What makes Lispector such a touchstone? What are the challenges of adapting her work to another language and another medium? What does it mean to find one’s own idiom through the work of another? The Podcast for Social Research is produced by Ryan Lentini. Learn more about upcoming courses on our website. Follow Brooklyn Institute for Social Research on Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / Bluesky
In episode 87 of the Podcast for Social Research, recorded live at BISR Central, BISR’s Rebecca Ariel Porte and Dilettante Army Editor-in-Chief Sara Clugage sat down with Kyla Wazana Tompkins to discuss her latest book, Deviant Matter: Ferment, Intoxicants, Jelly, Rot. The conversation touches on, among other things: food and the early history of the War on Drugs, the racialization of sugar, jelly and cocaine, food as a means for diagnosing entrenched political problems, and how plantation capitalism—and later, industrial capitalism—altered the sensory quality of everyday life. Along the way, they ask: what are the political uses of disgust? How have coffee, rum and sugar production transformed human experience? And—with Sylvia Wynter—how do we reconcile the immateriality of ideology with the materiality of the body? The Podcast for Social Research is produced by Ryan Lentini. Learn more about upcoming courses on our website. Follow Brooklyn Institute for Social Research on Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / Bluesky
In episode 71 of the Podcast for Social Research's Practical Criticism series, Rebecca Ariel Porte plays Neko Case's "Curse of the I-5 Corridor" (off the 2018 album Hell-On) for Ajay Singh Chaudhary. Their conversation ranges from convention to the sound of disillusionment to lyrical density, meta-musical gesture, vocal quality, and how you can tell if and when something is beyond saving.
In episode 15 of (Pop) Cultural Marxism, Ajay, Isi, and Joseph explore vampires in media, across genre and time! Welcoming back Joseph after a few episodes away, the episode kicks off with a games roundtable on Monster Hunter: Wilds (Capcom, 2025) and Pentiment (Obsidian, 2022), among other things. Then the group quickly dives into all things vampire. From Capital to Castelvania, the conversation analyzes the psychosexual, political economic, Orientalist, literary, genre, social, and even epidemiological metaphors, allegories, and tropes that haunt vampire stories and have made the figure of the vampire of such perennial—if shifting—fascination. How have vampire stories changed over time? Why do vampire stories shift and blur genre and valence? Why is the vampire such a perennial stand-in, across so many fields, often at the same time? Objects in consideration include: Carmilla (Sheridan Le Fanu, 1872), Dracula (Bram Stoker, 1897), Interview with the Vampire (novel: Anne Rice, 1976; TV adaptation: Rolin Jones, 2022-present; film: Neil Jordan, 1994), The Vampire Chronicles and Lives of the Mayfair Witches (Anne Rice), Nosferatu (F.W. Munrau, 1922), Nosferatu (Robert Eggers, 2024), A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Joss Whedon, 1997-2003), Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Konami, 1997), Castlevania (anime, Warren Ellis, 1997-2021), Castlevania: Nocturne (anime, Clive Bradley, 2023-present), True Blood (TV series, Alan Ball, 2008-2014), The Twilight Saga (films 2008-2012, based on the novels by Stephanie Meyer), Midnight Mass, What We Do In The Shadows, and many more! Discover how the erotic, the economic, the exotic and even the epidemic all collide in the tragedies, comedies, horrors, nightmares, and fantasies that prove the vampire is a potent if changing symbol for fears, desires, and delirium.
In episode 86 of the Podcast for Social Research, live-recorded at BISR Central, BISR’s Ajay Singh Chaudhary and Danya Glabau sat down with fellow faculty Nafis Hasan to celebrate the launch of his new book, Metastasis: The Rise of the Cancer-Industrial Complex and the Horizons of Care. Nafis kicks off the discussion with a briefing on the successful cultivation of cancer cures for mice, but not humans, fundamental failures at the clinical level, the rise of cancer as a household name, and the blockbuster drug moving for $500,000 a shot. The three then discuss the primacy placed, among researchers, on genetic mutations above environmental causes, the notion of “financial toxicity,” and what it means to critique medical research at a moment of widespread cuts to public health institutions. Key questions arise along the way: why—despite the allocation of so many resources—are we not winning the war on cancer? Why has an entire political economy developed around genetic mutations, at the expense of public health campaigns—a more proven mitigator of cancer-related deaths? Why is capitalism so embedded in efforts to defeat cancer, and is there any alternative? Note: The Novartis drug with a half-million dollar price tag mentioned at the top of the podcast is Kymriah, not Keytruda. The Podcast for Social Research is produced by Ryan Lentini. Learn more about upcoming courses on our website. Follow Brooklyn Institute for Social Research on Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / Bluesky
In this shortcast edition of the Podcast for Social Research, BISR’s Rebecca Ariel Porte, Ajay Singh Chaudhary, and Isi Litke discuss David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001). Conversation ranges over what it means for a thing to be "Lynchian," what it means for a thing to be surreal, why Mulholland Drive isn't easily reducible to pat explanation—and why that's a good thing, and the inextricability, modeled in the film, of dream life and ordinary reality. How, in film and life, do fantasy and reality merge? Why is Lynch particularly interested in Hollywood, that great dream factory? How does Lynchian melodrama, rubbing shoulders with Lynchian menace, give viewers the permission to feel things we otherwise deny ourselves in ordinary, waking life? What makes Lynch the premier poet of broken promises and shattered dreams?
In episode no. 70 of Practical Criticism, Ajay surprises Rebecca with Roy Hargrove and the RH Factor’s "Out of Town," off the 2003 record Hard Groove. The discussion includes a dive deep into jazz-hip-hop experiments, varieties and suspicions of musical fusion, caesuras and polyharmonies, the dissonant and the antiphonal, "open-eared moonlighting," and hybridity without history. Practical Criticism is produced by Ryan Lentini. Learn more about upcoming courses on our website. Follow Brooklyn Institute for Social Research on Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / Bluesky
What does sexual morality have to do with genocidal politics? In this episode of Faculty Spotlight, hosts Mark DeLucas and Lauren K. Wolfe sit down with Hannah Leffingwell—historian, queer theorist, musician, and novelist—to discuss the work of Dagmar Herzog, historian of sexuality whose celebrated book Sex After Fascism undid the myth that all Nazis were closeted homosexuals by exposing how it arose in the first place, and that long after the war had ended. Along the way, the three hash out: the uses and pitfalls of theory in the study of history, strategic misprisions of the past for political needs in the present, what sort of lens the history of sexuality can be for understanding mass political phenomena, and whether and how to invoke 20th-century fascisms to explain conservative reaction in the 21st. Tune in to discover why Nazism is not the past, how fascism was never anti-sex, why anti-queer and anti-trans animus have never been peripheral, why Trump can never be camp, and positive panegyrics for Chappell Roan and A Complete Unknown. Faculty Spotlight is produced by Ryan Lentini. Notes: Dagmar Herzog, Sex After Fascism (Princeton University Press, 2007) Dagmar Herzog, Cold War Freud (Cambridge University Press, 2016) Dagmar Herzog, The Question of Unworthy Life (Princeton University Press, 2024) Dagmar Herzog, Sex in Crisis (Basic Books, 2008) Sabrina Carpenter performing “Espresso” at the 2025 Grammys Chappell Roan performing “Pink Pony Club” at the 2025 Grammys Lesser Known Women (Hannah’s band) on Spotify and Bandcamp Lesser Known Women performing at Sunset Stoop on March 8th! Learn more about upcoming courses on our website. Follow Brooklyn Institute for Social Research on Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / Bluesky
In episode 85 of the Podcast for Social Research, recorded live on Facebook, BISR faculty Ajay Singh Chaudhary, Barnaby Raine, Abdaljawad Omar, and K. Soraya Batmanghelichi place the Gaza War ceasefire in the context of the conflict’s broader development. Ajay kicks off the discussion with a recap of the events leading up to the ceasefire, after which each of the panelists brings their expertise to bear—Abdaljawad analyzing the dialectic of futility and resistance in Palestine, Soraya grappling with Iran’s evolving geopolitical intentions, and Barnaby addressing the antisemitism panic in the Global North. The four then discuss: political developments within Israel and Palestine since October 7th, wider geopolitical reverberations, and Israel as a model for Trumpism and the global far right. An audience member’s question brings the conversation to an urgent point of reflection: how can we, in the Global North, sustain attention towards Palestinian resistance in the era of social media and truncated news cycles? 0:26 - Ajay Singh Chaudhary introduction and context 11:35 - Abdaljawad Omar on futility and resistance in Palestine 33:05 - K. Soraya Batmanghelichi on the geopolitical consequences for Iran 46:23 - Barnaby Raine on the weaponization of antisemitism 1:05:12 - Trump and the protection of Western Civilization 1:11:20 - Developments within Israeli and Palestinian societies since October 7th 1:42:12 - Global paradigm shifts and geopolitical maneuvering 2:06:53 - Zionism, Trumpism, and the global far right 2:29:34 - Audience question and concluding remarks - how to sustain attention towards Palestine The Podcast for Social Research is produced by Ryan Lentini. Check out the video version of this podcast on the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research YouTube Channel. Follow Brooklyn Institute for Social Research on Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / Bluesky Learn more about our upcoming courses on our website.
Isi and Ajay kick off episode 14 of (Pop) Cultural Marxism by paying tribute to the late, great American auteur David Lynch. They discuss the pleasures of Lynch's oneiric style, his keen eye for American mass culture (and the horrors it conceals), and recent re-watches of Twin Peaks and Dune. The two then reprise episode 13's review of 2024 pop culture. Along the way, they discuss year-end film releases (Brady Corbet's The Brutalist, Ridley Scott's Gladiator II, Robert Eggers' Nosferatu, Gints Zilbalodis' Flow), HBO's The Penguin, and recent gaming highlights (Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess) and lowlights (Indiana Jones and the Great Circle). Closing out the episode are pre-2024 cultural revisits, including Barry Lyndon, the Infernal Affairs trilogy, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, The Case of the Golden Idol, Inside Man, and Koyaanisqatsi. The podcast is produced by Ryan Lentini.
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, platforms—rather than cultural works—as objects of cathexis, IP art, and the use of IP as trans-media anchors. Along the way, they discuss social bandits, collective effervescence, Leiji Matsumoto’s Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem, the Criterion Closet truck, Sony’s push into the television space, Jon Chu’s Wicked, and 2024’s revealing box office numbers. In the second half of the episode, Ajay and Isi discuss the year’s highlights (Metaphor: ReFantazio [GoTY], Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, Lies of P, Mati Diop’s Dahomey, Shuchi Talati’s Girls Will Be Girls, a performance of book 1 of The Odyssey by Joseph Medeiros, Edward Berger’s Conclave, Todd Phillip’s divisive Joker: Folie à Deux, the second season of AMC’s Interview with the Vampire, and True Detective: Night Country) and lowlights (Denis Villeneuve's Dune 2, Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers, and a whole lot of "just okay" television)—with more to come in a follow-up episode after the holidays!
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 book What In Me Is Dark, an exploration of the revolutionary political and poetic potential of Milton’s Paradise Lost by way of its most prominent and most various readers—from Thomas Jefferson to Malcolm X to 21st century students in a New Jersey prison. Topics touched on include: selective and disobedient reading (and the uses of each); divinity, abjection, and the poet’s body; creation and subjugation; paradise and self-determination; letting the bad ideas rip—in the 17th century and on Twitter—in order to strengthen the good ones; domesticating Milton; unresolved contradictions; the profane joy of bending a text to one’s present needs; and much else besides. The Podcast for Social Research is produced by Ryan Lentini.