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.

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.