The Dig - podcast cover

The Dig

Daniel Denvirwww.thedigradio.com
The Dig is a podcast from Jacobin magazine that discusses politics, criminal justice, immigration and class conflict with smart people. Please support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4839800
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Episodes

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 25, 20211 hr 32 min

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 19, 20212 hr 19 min

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 11, 20212 hr 5 min

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 Y...

Feb 03, 20212 hr 16 min

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 27, 20211 hr 49 min

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 20, 20212 hr 20 min

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...

Jan 12, 20211 hr 51 min

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-2 Professional-Managerial Chasm nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-onl...

Jan 03, 20212 hr 9 min

Family Values with Melinda Cooper

From The Dig archives: Dan interviews Melinda Cooper about her book, Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism, which makes the case that neoliberalism and social conservatism have been consistent collaborators in creating an economy that redistributed wealth ruthlessly upwards with a risk-absorbing family at its privatized center. We’ll be back next week with a new episode. Listen to Antibody thedigradio.com/antibody Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Join a D...

Dec 27, 20201 hr 47 min

China and the US with Tobita Chow and Jake Werner

A big-picture interview with Tobita Chow and Jake Werner on China that puts today’s geopolitical conflict and repression into the context of global capitalism. Join a Dig Book Club thedigradio.com/dig-book-club Support this podcast at patreon.com/TheDig

Dec 19, 20202 hr 1 min

How Left Parties Neoliberalized with Stephanie Mudge

What happened to social democratic politics? Dan interviews sociologist Stephanie Mudge on her book Leftism Reinvented: Western Parties from Socialism to Neoliberalism . Join a Dig Book Club thedigradio.com/dig-book-club Support this podcast at patreon.com/TheDig

Dec 11, 20202 hr 20 min

Identity, Power, and Speech with Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò

Prevailing identity politics norms call on people “listen to the most affected” or “centre the most marginalized.” But this often works out quite badly in practice. Philosopher Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò on his brilliant essay “Being-in-the-Room Privilege: Elite Capture and Epistemic Deference.” It’s The Dig’s four-year anniversary. Support us at Patreon.com/TheDig and take a moment to post something to social media about why you listen to The Dig and how it has shaped your politics....

Dec 05, 20201 hr 48 min

Anti-Populism with Thomas Frank

Guest host Astra Taylor interviews Thomas Frank about his book The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism . From The Dig archives on populism: Universalizing American Liberty with Aziz Rana Populism’s Power with Laura Grattan and Thea Riofrancos Worker Freedom with Alex Gourevitch Join a Dig Book Club at thedigradio.com/dig-book-club Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig...

Nov 29, 20201 hr 38 min

The NAACP’s Anti-Lynching Struggle with Megan Ming Francis

Dan interviews political scientist Megan Ming Francis about the NAACP’s struggle against racist violence in the teens and 20s and how it remade the criminal justice system and the civil rights movement alike. Join a Dig book club! Next book is Wendy Brown’s In the Ruins of Neoliberalism thedigradio.com/dig-book-club/ Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig

Nov 22, 20201 hr 56 min

Mike Davis on This Moment

Dan interviews Mike Davis on what the election reveals about this US political moment and the way forward for the Left. Support this podcast at www.patreon.com/TheDig Join a Dig book club! Next book is Wendy Brown’s In the Ruins of Neoliberalism thedigradio.com/dig-book-club/

Nov 13, 20201 hr 22 min

What Now with Cornel West

Dan interviews Cornel West on how to think about and act upon the world that this week presented to us. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig

Nov 07, 20201 hr 5 min

2020 with Naomi Klein and Nikhil Pal Singh

What else to talk about right now other than everything about right now? Election, pandemic, BLM, climate, and how the left should think about and struggle with it all. Dan interviews Naomi Klein and Nikhil Pal Singh. Support this podcast on Patreon.com/TheDig Join a Dig Book Club. Next book is Wendy Brown’s In the Ruins of Neoliberalism thedigradio.com/dig-book-club

Oct 30, 20201 hr 51 min

Ruins of Neoliberalism with Wendy Brown

Political theorist Wendy Brown on how neoliberalism attacked society and democracy and in doing so laid the foundation for right-wing authoritarianism and nihilism. Episodes from the archives on neoliberalism: A History of Neoliberalism with Quinn Slobodian Family Values with Melinda Cooper

Oct 25, 20201 hr 50 min

Unforgetting with Roberto Lovato

Roberto Lovato on Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas . Growing up Salvadoran-American in The Mission, fighting with the FMLN in El Salvador, making sense of MS-13, weaving back together the pieces of a transnational history severed by borders and violence. Lovato retells El Salvador and US history through his family’s story. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Join The Dig book club at thedigradio.com/dig-book-club/...

Oct 16, 20201 hr 48 min

SCOTUS, Politics, and the Law

Dan interviews legal scholars Aziz Rana and Amna Akbar, and Movement for Black Lives lawyer Marbre Stahly-Butts, on SCOTUS, liberal RBG and court veneration, and other big questions on the law and politics facing the left. Join a Dig book club at thedigradio.com/dig-book-club Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig

Oct 09, 20201 hr 46 min

Arctic Energy Frontiers with Bathsheba Demuth

Bathsheba Demuth on her monumental book Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait . From the 19th century through today, governments and capitalists on the Russian, Soviet, and American Arctic borderlands extract energy from a natural world whose reproductive cycles they don’t comprehend and strive to convert Indigenous people into national subjects. Support this podcast with a contribution at Patreon.com/TheDig

Oct 02, 20202 hr 1 min

Demystifying Big Tech with Meredith Whittaker

Guest host Astra Taylor interviews tech organizer and scholar Meredith Whittaker on the political economy of the tech leviathan that’s remaking capitalism, empire, and the carceral state. FYI: Whittaker mentioned this interview with Sarah T. Hamid on carceral technologies logicmag.io/care/community-defense-sarah-t-hamid-on-abolishing-carceral-technologies/ Support this podcast with a contribution at Patreon.com/TheDig...

Sep 25, 20202 hr 9 min

Child Safety Sex Panics with Paul Renfro

Dan interviews historian Paul Renfro on his book Stranger Danger: Family Values, Childhood, and the American Carceral State . Stranger Danger is also this month’s Dig Book Club book. Read and discuss it with fellow listeners, and then on Zoom with Paul by signing up here: thedigradio.com/dig-book-club/ A relevant Dig ep from the archives: Melinda Cooper on her book Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism thedigradio.com/podcast/family-values-with-melinda-cooper/ Plea...

Sep 19, 20202 hr 5 min

Higher Ed in Crisis

Dan interviews Tithi Bhattacharya, Daniel Bessner, Simon Torracinta on the manifold crises engulfing higher ed as covid exposes and exacerbates decades of austerity and neoliberal iniquity. “House of Cards: Can the American university be saved?” by Daniel Bessner thenation.com/article/society/gig-academy-meritocracy-trap-universities-crisis “Extinction Event: Given what is to come, schools of every kind are now at risk” by Simon Torracinta nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/extinction-event...

Sep 12, 20201 hr 57 min

Philly Black Power with Matthew Countryman

Dan interviews historian Matthew Countryman on his book Up South: Civil Rights and Black Power in Philadelphia . Join a Dig Book Club reading group and discuss Up South with Countryman on September 12. Sign up here thedigradio.com/dig-book-club Support this podcast with a contribution at Patreon.com/TheDig

Sep 03, 20202 hr 11 min

Yanis Varoufakis on the Economic Situation

Dan’s recent live event with Yanis Varoufakis on how 2020 revealed that 2008 had changed capitalism forever. Also: we had some pod feed issues last week. If you missed Dan’s interview with brilliant organizers Andres Celin and Rapheal Randall—and this is a must-listen for everyone interested in organizing—check it out: www.thedigradio.com/podcast/organize-to-win-with-andres-celin-and-rapheal-randall/...

Aug 23, 20201 hr 14 min

Organize to Win with Andres Celin and Rapheal Randall

A must-listen conversation on organizing to win with two extraordinary organizers from Philadelphia’s Youth United for Change. Download their book Y’all Tryna Win or Nah?! https://www.youthunitedforchange.org/y_all_tryna_win_or_nah Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig

Aug 14, 20201 hr 57 min

Border Patrol with Kelly Lytle Hernández

Dan interviews Kelly Lytle Hernández on MIGRA! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol . Dan’s 2017 interview with Lytle Hernández on City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771-1965 : thedigradio.com/podcast/a-history-of-human-caging-with-kelly-lytle-hernandez Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig...

Aug 08, 20201 hr 34 min

Goodbye Columbus with Matthew Frye Jacobson

Dan’s 2018 interview with Matthew Frye Jacobson on Roots Too: White Ethnic Revival in Post–Civil Rights America . With a new intro from Dan on the Columbus myth and the politics of white ethnicity. Support this podcast with money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Jul 31, 20201 hr 23 min

Cops and Counterinsurgency with Stuart Schrader

Our police system is a product of Cold War US imperialism too. Dan interviews Stuart Schrader on Badges Without Borders: How Global Counterinsurgency Transformed American Policing . Support this podcast with your money at patreon.com/TheDig

Jul 24, 20202 hr 10 min
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