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The Podcast for Social Research: Daily Summaries Delivered
by The Brooklyn Institute 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.
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- Today1h 5m
Podcast for Social Research, Episode 96: Here Where We Live Is Our Country, An Evening with Molly Crabapple
The artist and writer Molly Crabapple joins journalist Spencer Ackerman and BISR's Suzy Schneider in coversation about her new book, Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund, which recreates the revolutionary world of the Bundists, and explores the interwoven histories of the Bund, the Russian Revolution, and the Holocaust. What can we learn, she asks, from this short-lived but influential socialist alternative to Zionism? What does this movement have to say about the past and future of the Jewish left, radical diasporas, the politics of assimilation, and the Bund's cultural and intellectual legacy. What can the transnational history of the Bund teach us about working-class organization, education, and culture? How can the Bund's radical vision of solidarity inform liberation struggles in the present? You can download the episode by right-clicking here and selecting "save as." Or, look us up on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. This episode was produced by Ryan Lentini. If you like what you've heard, consider supporting the podcast by becoming a BISR member or subscribing to Brooklyn Institute's Patreon page, where you can enjoy access to all past and future episodes of the Podcast for Social Research.
- Apr 15, 20261h 26m
Podcast for Social Research, Episode 95: On Crisis and the Origins of Modern Iran
In this episode of the Podcast for Social Research, Suzanne Schneider and Soraya Batmanghelichi consider the current crisis in Iran, tracing its roots through the touchpoints of twentieth- and twenty-first-century Iranian history. Their conversation ranges over the origins of modern Iranian political and class structures from the eighteenth century to the present, European interventions in the Middle East, the role of the Iranian people in revolutionary change, Iran-U.S. relations and disjunctions, geopolitical fantasies about Iran and the part it plays as a regional actor, and the very human stakes of inhumane conflicts. You can download the episode by right-clicking here and selecting "save as." Or, look us up on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. This episode was produced by Ryan Lentini. If you like what you've heard, consider supporting the podcast by becoming a BISR member or subscribing to Brooklyn Institute's Patreon page, where you can enjoy access to all past and future episodes of the Podcast for Social Research.
- Apr 3, 202647 min
Podcast for Social Research, Episode 94.5: B.F. Skinner Plays Himself — a Brief Film Guide
In this shortcast edition of the Podcast for Social Research, recorded live as part of BISR's Occasional Evenings event series, BISR's Isi Litke and Rebecca Ariel Porte talk with documentarian Ted Kennedy about his film, B.F. Skinner Plays Himself, composed of found footage from a never-released educational film about the famed radical behaviorist. The conversation covers the political contexts for radical behaviorism, its legacies and missed opportunities, and the behaviorist resistance to psychoanalytic perspectives. The three also consider documentary aesthetics, working with found footage, and what studying Skinner as a documentary subject can teach us about the conditions that produce new behaviors. This episode was produced by Ryan Lentini. Learn more about upcoming courses on our website. Follow Brooklyn Institute for Social Research on Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / Bluesky.
- Dec 19, 20251h 29m
Political Humiliation, Collective Struggle: A Conversation with Roxanne Euben
Episode 94 of the Podcast for Social Research is a live recording of an event held at BISR Central to mark the publication of political theorist Roxanne Euben's Driven to Their Knees: Humiliation in Contemporary Politics (Princeton University Press). The text examining visual, verbal, and embodied rhetorics of humiliation across a wide variety of Arabic sources alongside related especially American examples, showing how humiliation is understood as the "imposition of impotence by those with undeserved power." Euben joins BISR faculty Ajay Singh Chaudhary and Suzanne Schneider for a wide-ranging conversation about the place of humiliation in contemporary politics. Together, the three ask: What sort of political projects does the experience of humiliation authorize? How does humiliation rhetoric encode and constitute gendered political subjects? And how might such rhetoric galvanize collective political struggle? 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.
- Nov 26, 20251h 39m
Podcast for Social Research, Episode 93: Nature's Value — Alyssa Battistoni in Conversation with Nafis Hasan and Ajay Singh Chaudhary
Episode 93 of the Podcast for Social Research is a live recording of an event held at BISR Central to mark the publication of political theorist Alyssa Battistoni's Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature (Princeton University Press). Battistoni joins BISR's Ajay Singh Chaudhary and Nafis Hasan to discuss how capitalism, as a logic of seemingly relentless commodification, has nevertheless failed to assign value to vital aspects of the nonhuman world, from natural agents in industry to environmental pollution, reproductive labor in the household, and natural capital in the biosphere. Along the way, the three consider the similarities between labor exploitation and ecological exploitation; the Green Revolution in agriculture; the romanticization of nature; the place of reproductive labor in ecofeminist thought; and the case for understanding capitalism as a "planet-making system." What would it mean, they ask, to live freely while valuing nature's gifts?
- Oct 31, 20252h 51m
(Pop) Cultural Marxism, Episode 19: Ghost of Yotei - A Specter is Haunting Ezo
In episode 19 of (Pop) Cultural Marxism, Isi and Ajay are joined by fellow BISR faculty Joseph Earl Thomas to discuss Ghost of Yotei, Sucker Punch Productions' much-anticipated sequel to Ghost of Tsushima. To kick off the episode, Isi and Ajay chat about recent cultural news and highlights, from the Japanese government calling on OpenAI to refrain from using anime and manga as training data, to the #SwiftiesAgainstAI campaign, to Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another (2025). Turning to Ghost of Yotei, Isi, Ajay, and Joseph consider where the game succeeds (its strong start, visual beauty, sharp soundtrack, and the satisfying chunkiness and texture of its combat scenes) and where it doesn't (its loadout system, simplistic puzzles, dearth of opportunities for stealth mode, and social and political quandaries its narrative and design raise). They explore the films and television shows that influenced Yotei—from Lady Snowblood and Samurai Champloo to the films of Takashi Miike, Akira Kurosawa, and Sergio Leone) and ask whether and where the game successfully incorporates cinematic techniques and c
- Oct 24, 202553 min
Podcast for Social Research, Episode 92.5: Hangmen Also Die! — a Brief Film Guide
In this shortcast edition of the Podcast for Social Research, BISR's Isi Litke and Jude Webre discuss Fritz Lang's Hangmen Also Die! (1947). Loosely based on the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, and conceived by Lang and Bertolt Brecht mere weeks after his death, the film follows members of the Czech resistance as they attempt to shield Heydrich's killer from Nazi authorities in occupied Prague. Conversation ranges from Lang and Brecht's fraught collaboration to Hanns Eisler's unconventional score, the film's attempts to sell a war-averse American public on the antifascist cause, the nature of Popular Front cultural objects, and the film's connection to the Hollywood blacklist. To what extent does Hangmen Also Die! succeed as propaganda, as procedural, and/or as epic theater? How does the film embody the tensions intrinsic to Popular Front coalitions? And what might the film teach us about antifascist politics and propaganda in our current moment? 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.
- Sep 19, 20252h 30m
(Pop) Cultural Marxism, Episode 18: I Don't Know What You Did Last Summer
In episode 18 of (Pop) Cultural Marxism, Isi and Ajay spend some time with a handful of big news items at the intersection of politics and media—from the Skydance-Paramount merger (and other instances of media market concentration) and its implications for American newsmedia (and its potential new gatekeepers); to Charlie Kirk's assassination, its aftermath, its mediations with mass cultural objects (like alleged HellDivers II bullet etchings or Nepalese protestors with One Piece flags); the culture industry's failure to perform even its therapeutic function; and the growing exclusivity of once-accessible arts venues and performance spaces! A wide ranging discussion of summer media diets follows, beginning with Isi's recent love affair with the Western genre. The two discuss their shared fondness for Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone's many collaborations and the unmatched brilliance of HBO's Deadwood. Turning to the world of gaming, Ajay considers tragic endings (Expedition 33, the Death Stranding franchise), slow gaming (Herdling), and the relationship between gaming and choreography (Split Fiction). Also under consideration: what Joe Wright's miniseries, Mussolini: Son of the Century, gets right about the fascist imaginary; what Len Wiseman's Ballerina gets wrong about the appeal of John Wick; and what Foundation and The Sandman suggest about the challenges of adaptation and the culture industry's recent predilection for a 21st century spin on classical tragedy. Along the way, they return repeatedly to a longstanding PCM preoccupation with medium-specificity as well as the general bleakness seeping into the cultural reflections of this historical moment. (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.
About 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.
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