Episodes

June 7, 2021

Climate Politics with Kate Aronoff

Journalist Kate Aronoff discusses climate policy and politics and her book Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet—And How We Fight Back. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig
May 31, 2021

Organizing DSA’s PRO Act Campaign

How ecosocialists formed a powerful coalition with unions to fight for labor law reform and why we need a powerful labor movement to win a Green New Deal. An interview with four members of DSA’s Green New Deal Campaign Committee: Ashik Siddique, Gustavo Gordillo, Sydney Ghazarian, and Thea Riofrancos. This is a collaborative episode with Bloc Party, a podcast from Justice Democrats. Get involved in DSA’s PRO Act fight: pro-act.dsausa.org Ryan Grim’s post on breaking the filibuster: badnews.sub...
May 22, 2021

From the River to the Sea w/ Noura Erakat and Tareq Baconi

Dan speaks with Noura Erakat and Tareq Baconi: an in-depth interview on Israeli apartheid and dispossession, the history and future of the Palestinian struggle, Israeli politics, media false equivalences, and shifting US public opinion toward Palestine. DONATE NOW to the Palestinian people: We Are Not Numbers wearenotnumbers.org/home/donate Multiple organizations: muftah.org/organizations-working-in-palestine-that-need-your-support/#.YKQaGZNKhpT Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig
May 18, 2021

Gaza with Aya Alghazzawi & Issam Adwan

Two voices from Gaza. The first of two episodes on Palestine this week with teacher and BDS activist Aya Alghazzawi and journalist Issam Adwan, project manager for We Are Not Numbers. DONATE NOW to the Palestinian people: We Are Not Numbers wearenotnumbers.org/home/donate Multiple organizations: muftah.org/organizations-working-in-palestine-that-need-your-support/#.YKQaGZNKhpT
May 15, 2021

Hammer and Hoe with Robin D.G. Kelley

Dan interviews historian Robin D.G. Kelley on his classic book Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression. Please support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig
May 9, 2021

“Cancel Culture” w/ Moira Weigel, Nikhil Pal Singh, Patrick Blanchfield

What is so-called cancel culture? Why has it suddenly emerged as arguably the issue in right-wing politics? How does today’s cancel culture discourse differ from the anti-PC discourse that first emerged in the early 1990s? How do we distinguish between liberal opponents of PC like Jonathan Chain and right-wing ones like Donald Trump? And then, finally, is there still a there there? Some problems with The Discourse that we should reflect upon? Readings: Some “Politically Incorrect” Pathways Thr...
April 30, 2021

Big Ship Capitalism with Laleh Khalili

Dan interviews Laleh Khalili on Sinews of War and Trade: Shipping and Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula. The Suez Canal, the colonial roots of contemporary maritime trade, Aden dock worker radicals, why Dubai is not exceptional, the impacts of steam engines and containerization—and so much more. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig
April 24, 2021

Empire in the Philippines with Rick Baldoz

US empire in the Philippines, Filipino migration, labor organizing in the fields, and the nativist campaign for Asian exclusion. Dan interviews Rick Baldoz on his remarkable book The Third Asiatic Invasion: Empire and Migration in Filipino America, 1898-1946. Please support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig
April 16, 2021

Combat Liberalism w/ Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Mindy Isser, & Zachary Hershman

Three thinkers and organizers on the much debated question of ultra-leftism post-Bernie 2020. Two texts that informed our discussion: The Liberal to Ultra-Left Pipeline: Breaking the Cycle by Brian W. Liberalism, ultraleftism or mass action, a speech delivered by Socialist Workers Party leader Peter Camejo. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig
April 11, 2021

Black Left with Charisse Burden-Stelly

Dan interviews Charisse Burden-Stelly on racial capitalism, the history of the US Black left, and the US government’s Red Scare attacks on Black radicals. Read Burden-Stelly’s work Modern U.S. Racial Capitalism: Some Theoretical Insights Black Cold War Liberalism as an Agency Reduction Formation during the Late 1940s and the Early 1950s Constructing Deportable Subjectivity: Antiforeignness, Antiradicalism, and Antiblackness during the McCarthyist Structure of Feeling Caste Does Not Explain Rac...
April 1, 2021

Asian America w/ Andy Liu, Jay Caspian Kang, & Tammy Kim

Dan interviews the hosts of Time to Say Goodbye podcast on Asian American politics and identity. Check out Time to Say Goodbye wherever you get podcasts. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig
March 26, 2021

Counterculture to Cyberculture with Fred Turner

How the 60s counterculture went on to make the techno-utopian ideology that suffuses our techno-dystopian reality. Dan interviews Fred Turner on his classic From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig
March 20, 2021

Global Vaccine Apartheid with Achal Prabhala

Astra Taylor interviews Achal Prabhala on emerging global vaccine apartheid: from the neoliberal turn handing the pharmaceutical industry global patents to today’s government-funded vaccines put under private pharma control. Groups fighting global vaccine apartheid Public Citizen: citizen.org/topic/safe-affordable-drugs-devices/global-access-to-medicines MSF: msfaccess.org Prep4All: prep4all.org People’s Vaccine Alliance: peoplesvaccine.org Recent work by Prabhala: nytimes.com/2020/12/07/...
March 13, 2021

We Need the PRO Act with Jimmy Williams

Why we need the PRO Act with Jimmy Williams, General Vice President of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades. Sign up to join DSA’s PRO Act phonebank actionnetwork.org/forms/proactphonebank Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Join The Dig Book Club and discuss The Digital Party: Political Organisation and Online Democracy with Paolo Gerbaudo thedigradio.com/dig-book-club. Same to zoom with Astra Taylor and Erick Stoll on their doc You Are Not a Loan.
March 13, 2021

State of the Unions with Alex Press & Jonah Furman

Dan interviews Jacobin‘s Alex Press and organizer Jonah Furman on the state of the labor movement. Sign up to join DSA’s Pro Act phonebank actionnetwork.org/forms/proactphonebank Read Alex Press’s interview with political scientist Michael Goldfield on the Amazon organizing drive in Bessemer jacobinmag.com/2021/02/amazon-unionize-alabama-operation-dixie-organizing-south Subscribe to Jonah Furman’s newsletter whogetsthebird.substack.com Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Join The Dig Boo...
March 5, 2021

Revisiting Racecraft with Barbara and Karen Fields

We’re taking a week off to play catch up and posting an early Dig episode from the archives that people keep returning to time and again: Barbara and Karen Fields on their book Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life (episode 75 from December 13, 2017). Peruse The Dig’s vast archives at thedigradio.com and we’ll be back with a new ep next week. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Join The Dig Book Club and discuss The Digital Party: Political Organisation and Online Democracy ...
Feb. 25, 2021

Work Won’t Love You Back with Sarah Jaffe

Dan interviews Sarah Jaffe on her book Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion To Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted and Alone. Support this podcast on Patreon.com/TheDig Join The Dig Book Club and discuss The Digital Party: Political Organisation and Online Democracy with Paolo Gerbaudo thedigradio.com/dig-book-club
Feb. 18, 2021

Conservative Intelligentsia with Sam Adler-Bell & Matt Sitman

Dan interviews Sam Adler-Bell and Matt Sitman on the history and post-Trump trajectory of conservative intelligentsia. Listen to Know Your Enemy, their really great podcast on the American Right, wherever you get your podcasts. Sign up on Patreon for bonus episodes: patreon.com/knowyourenemy Recommended reading and listening: “What’s left of liberalism? Why the left and right both seem to agree that liberalism has failed us.” By Sam Adler-Bell “Know Your Enemy #13: What Happened to Norman? with...
Feb. 10, 2021

Empires Without Imperialism with Jeanne Morefield

Dan interviews Jeanne Morefield on her book Empires Without Imperialism: Anglo-American Decline and the Politics of Deflection and how the disavowed wars have come home on the American Right. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Join the Dig Book Club at thedigradio.com/dig-book-club Check out our vast archives at thedigradio.com
Feb. 3, 2021

Digital Party with Paolo Gerbaudo

Dan interviews sociologist Paolo Gerbaudo on his book The Digital Party: Political Organisation and Online Democracy. How does the promise of direct digital democracy obscure how leaders are made more powerful and less accountable? Examples from Italy (Five Star Movement) and Spain (Podemos). How does the failure to incorporate people into rooted forms of political organization undermine the left’s power, coherence, and durability? Example from the USA (the funhouse mirror-appeal of a certain Yo...
Jan. 27, 2021

Pakistan Hyperreality with Fatima Bhutto

Dan interviews author Fatima Bhutto on social media subjectivities; Pakistani history, politics, and identity; and her novel The Runaways. Support this podcast with a contribution at Patreon.com/TheDig Join a Dig Book Club at thedigradio.com/dig-book-club
Jan. 19, 2021

Resource Radicals with Thea Riofrancos

Dan interviews Thea Riofrancos on how Ecuador’s Pink Tide government was constrained by an unequal world system and on the conflict over mining that erupted between leftist President Rafael Correa and the Indigenous movement that laid the groundwork for his rise to power. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Join a Dig book club at thedigradio.com/dig-book-club
Jan. 11, 2021

Right Riot with Nikhil Pal Singh and Joe Lowndes

Nikhil Pal Singh and Joe Lowndes discuss and debate today’s American Right: what sort of threat does the Far-Right pose? How does it relate to the Republican Party and to the neoliberal imperial Center? What does that mean for the Left? Read Corey Robin’s smart and short piece on impeachment jacobinmag.com/2021/01/corey-robin-what-impeachment-could-mean-trump Listen to Dan’s interview with Joe Lowndes and Daniel Martinez HoSang & Joe Lowndes on their book Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race an...
Jan. 3, 2021

The Social Question with Gabriel Winant

Dan interviews historian and essayist Gabriel Winant on the social worlds that make US politics and how that sociality is rooted in the economy, carceral state, social media, religion, and more. Read these n+1 essays and Dissent interview for context: We Live in a Society nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/we-live-in-a-society Coronavirus and Chronopolitics nplusonemag.com/issue-37/politics/coronavirus-and-chronopolitics-2Professional-Managerial Chasm nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-on...