The Podcast For Social Research

What is the price of fracking? In the 33rd episode of the Podcast for Social Research, Eliza Griswold, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America, joins BISR's Ajay Singh Chaudhary for a wide-ranging conversation about fracking (what it is and what it does), energy politics, rural economies, corporate and regulatory collusion, resistance, and the economics of ecological sustainability. Is increased natural-gas extraction economically necessary—or even desirable? What role do governmental agencies play? In rural communities, why do landowners sign fracking leases, and who ultimately benefits? Can an energy-based economy be both productive and ecologically sustainable—or is some alternative necessary to mitigate the very worst effects of climate change?

In this thirty-second episode of the Podcast for Social Research Core Faculty Member Rebecca Ariel Porte delivers an address for the two-hundredth anniversary of Keats's Odes of 1819, originally recorded as a live broadcast for Montez Press Radio. This lecture considers how to read and what it means to be reading these strange poetic artifacts now--and, too, what it means to be on, to, with, for, and against the Romantic forms of poetry that go under the name of "ode." What is an ode and why write or read one? What are the effects of an ode, its tremors in time, its odicy? What are the odd reverberations of Keats's odicies and their objects--psyche, indolence, melancholy, nightingale, urn, autumn--after two centuries of wear and tear?

In the thirty-first episode of the Podcast for Social Research, recorded live at the 2019 Night of Philosophy and Ideas (February 2nd - February 3rd, 7 p.m. - 7 a.m.), an all-night marathon of intellectual life co-sponsored by Brooklyn Public Library and the French Embassy, BISR faculty Suzanne Schneider, Ajay Singh Chaudhary, and Rebecca Ariel Porte deliver a series of talks on the theme of the evening, "Facing the Present. Suzy explores the linkages between the contemporary right wing and Islamic jihad; Ajay theorizes  “The Long Now” of life during climate change; Rebecca contemplates the puzzle of naming and envisioning possible worlds like and yet unlike our own. What senses of past, present, and future animate acts of terror or a nihilist orientation to the world? How, as political subjects, do we register the devastations of the anthropocene, already so powerfully present to so many? Why do we attach to distant, radiant, indifferent objects and what does their allure have to do with the difficult arrang

Ajay, Raphaële, and Rebecca look back on 2018 in cultural objects: what artifacts from the catastrophe of history lingered with them and which will they be salvaging for the coming year? Conversation ranges from poetry and theory to music, film, games, and other sensory pleasures, broadly conceived.

In this shortcast, Ajay, Audrey, Mark, Raphaële, and Rebecca talk about the feel of the winter holiday season, sweet and sour, bitter and bright, ritual and revulsion.

The 2008 financial crisis shook to the core not only the global economy, but also prevailing myths about the efficiency of markets, the possibility of endless profits and growth, and the inviolability of capitalism. In The Fall that Wasn’t: a Decade Since the Financial Crisis, documentarian Astra Taylor and journalist Sarah Jaffe join BISR faculty Ajay Singh Chaudhary, Rebecca Ariel Porte, and Raphaële Chappe for a wide-ranging panel discussion of the causes and contexts of the crash, as well as its lasting, overwhelming consequences for policy, politics, and culture. In addition to retracing the blow-by-blow of events, panelists discuss neoliberalism and capitalism, austerity, accountability, political and aesthetic repercussions, and the nature of crisis itself.  (Apologies for drops in audio at 47 minutes and 1:24 minutes. Please see the embedded video of the Verso event on the BISR site, which partially addresses the gaps)

In the twenty-seventh episode of the Podcast for Social Research,BISR faculty Adriana Garriga-Lopez, Ajay Singh Chaudhary, and Alyssa Battistoni attempt to untangle the interlocking forces that rendered Puerto Rico fatally vulnerable to the double punch of Hurricanes Irma and Maria. One year later, Puerto Rico remains a site of social and ecological catastrophe, an “unnatural” disaster of infrastructural decay, economic austerity, and political subjugation. What, in theory and practice, is Puerto Rico’s relation to the United States? What impact has colonization, neoliberalization, and financialization had on Puerto Rico’s social, economic, and political condition? What is the state of the island 11 months after landfall? How do ordinary Puerto Ricans cope, and what can be done?

In our second Podcast for Social Research Shortcast, BISR's Suzanne Schneider, Ajay Singh Chaudhary, Raphaele Chappe, Mark DeLucas, and Michael Stevenson discuss the odd appeal, and internal contradictions, of HGTV. What sort of ideal does HGTV project, and why, today, is it attractive? Why are domestic spaces now seen as sites of potential perfectibility, of entrepreneurial derring-do? What distinguishes HGTV from "This Old House"? Why, in shows about settling down, do the participants seem as if they come from, and end up in, no place?

The twenty-sixth episode of the podcast for social research is a live recording of a discussion on Suzanne Schneider’s new book Mandatory Separation: Religion, Education, and Mass Politics in Palestine, hosted by New York Society Library. BISR’s Ajay Singh Chaudhary, Anthony Alessandrini, and Suzanne Schneider discuss whether religion is source of political stability, social continuity or an agent of radical change and how should we understand religion and secularism when we talk about political and historical matters such as partition and nationalism? Suzanne talks about her book that takes mandate period Palestine as a case study under the British administration to study the relationship of religion, education, state and politics. Panelists ask how in light of these considerations should we attempt to create a clear boundary between religious and political.

In our first Podcast for Social Research Shortcast, BISR's Rebecca Ariel Porte, Raphaele Chappe, Mark DeLucas, Suzanne Schneider, and Ajay Singh Chaudhary watch the trailer for the movie Mary Shelley and consider the life of Mary Shelley, the Romantic intellectual milieu, and filmic representations of genius. Are intellectual bio-pics always undone by self-seriousness? Is campiness the key to representing genius and creativity?

The twenty-fifth episode of the Podcast for Social Research is a live recording of "Borders, Migration, and Crisis," a critical and wide-ranging conversation on migration and the present-day immigration crisis: its roots, form, and legal and physical structure, the political, legal, economic, and geographical contexts for migration,  and alternatives to the status quo. The event, which took place on July 8th, 2018, featured Nestor Rodriguez (UT Austin, Department of Sociology), Sarah Lopez (UT Austin, School of Architecture, Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice), Eduardo Canales (Executive Director of the South Texas Human Rights Center), Ana Vidina Hernández (UT Austin, Social Work), and BISR’s Ajay Singh Chaudhary, took place on Friday, July 6th at the Black Star Co-op in Austin and was made possible by BISR in partnership with the Consulate General of Mexico in Austin, Jolt Texas, and Union Communications Services, and in solidarity with Jolt’s "Art Caravan for Children to Brownsville."  

In the twenty-fourth episode of the Podcast for Social Research, Ajay Singh Chaudhary, Rebecca Ariel Porte, Nathan Shields, and Jude Webre discuss the relationship between music and criticism and the what it means to talk intelligibly about popular genres ranging from jazz to pop to prog rock. Departing from Adorno’s “Perennial Fashion—Jazz” and recent work by the critic Kelefa Sanneh, this roundtable considers the following questions: What does it mean to do music criticism in a world of constantly mutating genres, sounds, forms, and vocabularies? What does it mean to listen to music as a critic, an enthusiast, a performer, or a composer? How does taste really work? And how do conversations about music shape our social worlds?

Episode twenty-three of the podcast is a live recording hosted by Caveat Space. Just Before Trump delivered his first State of the Union, guests Sarah Jaffe (the Nation Institute) and Kazembe Balagun (Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung) and BISR’s Ajay Singh Chaudhary, Patrick Blanchfield, Samantha Hill, and Kali Handelman took to the Caveat stage to discuss the state of the country and our politics as they actually are. What has changed and what hasn’t in the past year? In the era of the 24-hour news cycle, what stands out as significant, exceptional, or exemplary? What is the state of our union? Participants present a picture of the past year and the present moment through the stories, moments, and issues that stand out to them. Q & A follows.

In the twenty-second episode of the Podcast for Social Research, Asma Abbas, Tony Alessandrini, Ajay Singh Chaudhary, and Rebecca Ariel Porte commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the Russian Revolution with a conversation about its material legacy in text, music, visual art, film, architecture and technology. Panelists ask what the revolution was, why it happened, how it played out in political theory and in practice. Their conversation considers what the revolution meant in its own moment and what it means today in light of attempts to conceive different and better forms of life. Due to technical difficulties, the first part of the episode recreates a conversation originally recorded live at 61 Local; the second part of the episode, which departs from the question of to what degree we've forgotten the forms and effects of the revolution and to what degree they're still with us, preserves the panel discussion from the original event. Notations for this episode may be found here. 

We've been podcasting for six years — from even before the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research's first class. Our podcasts have always covered a range of topics — from philosophy and literature, to science and technology, to politics and society — and is always socially engaged (and always features an interactive bibliography!). In creating a Patreon page, and by releasing episodes here, we invite greater listener involvement: with your generous support, we can achieve a long-standing goal of putting the Podcast for Social Research on a more regularized footing, with improved production values (we'll be able pay for engineering!) and regularly scheduled episodes. On the right, you'll find the various giving levels. Whether as a mere “Lumpen Disruptor” or a mighty “Venture Capitalist,” you'll play a crucial and much-appreciated role in strengthening the Brooklyn Institute and making the Podcast for Social Research a high-quality public intellectual resource. We’re incredibly proud that the Podcast for Socia

Episode 21 of the Podcast for Social Research features a conversation between core faculty members Raphaële Chappe and Danya Glabau on science education in the contemporary moment. What does it mean to be scientifically or mathematically literate and what do these literacies have to do with the styles of critical inquiry at play in the humanities and social sciences? Raphaële and Danya ask what science pedagogy means right now, particularly in the American context, and how the question of education intersects with problems of access, disciplinarity, institutional politics, and the history of ideas.

The twentieth episode of the Podcast for Social Research was recorded live June 9-10 at “The People’s Summit” in Chicago, Illinois! BISR executive director and core faculty Ajay Singh Chaudhary and program coordinator (and future organizing fellow) Audrey Nicolaides sat down with Maria Svart of the Democratic Socialists of America, Sarah Leonard of The Nation and Dissent, and Lina Khan of New American. We had to change mics at least once (hence the sound fluctuations for the first ten minutes or so of Maria’s conversation), we recorded simultaneously for podcast and live video (hence the constant confusions between "listening" and "viewing" audiences) and Audrey lost her voice almost immediately but we had fascinating and far-reaching conversations with our guests about contemporary American politics, socialism, praxis, political strategy, human emancipation, journalism, epistemology, internationalism, political economy, anti-trust, and some brighter possibilities in dark times.

The nineteenth episode of the Podcast for Social Research features BISR research associate Jeffrey Escoffier, formerly the director of health, media, and marketing for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene under Michael Bloomberg, in conversation with Ajay Singh Chaudhary and Danya Glabau. Jeffrey, Ajay, and Danya talk through Foucault’s conception of the biopolitical, regimes of biopolitics in New York City, the history of public health, the policing of pleasure, health as morality, the strategies and politics of marketing healthy behavior, and coming down with a bad case of Aristotelian akrasia. Notations for this episode may be found here.  

Public Conversations: Uses of Poetry is the eighteenth episode of the Podcast for Social Research and features poet, scholar, and divagator Maureen N. McLane, author of Mz N: the Serial, among other works of poetry and criticism, along with BISR faculty member Rebecca Ariel Porte. Maureen and Rebecca talk art in a time of crisis, what it means to be contemporary, how poems happen, hybrid forms, the genesis of Mz N, lyric theory, and what, in the first place, poetry is for. Recorded live at Berg’n, this episode was moderated by Christine Smallwood, a founding BISR faculty member, and marks the first event of BISR’s Public Conversations program, a series that puts members of the Institute faculty in dialogue with artists, writers, scientists, and other luminaries. Notations for this episode may be found here.