A break from the news cycle with our friend, Vinson Cunningham, a theatre critic at The New Yorker, playwright, novelist, and all-around lovely guy.
We talk about the NYC mayoral race (race/authenticity politics), basketball (the architecture of MSG; the LeBron effect; Jokic, Luka, and European style), and how the theatre world has survived the pandemic (read Vinson on virtual theatre and his recent review of a piece in Tammy’s neighborhood).
Speaking of incredible performances:
Thanks for listening and supporting the pod! Please stay in touch, and see you in the Discord!
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We’re back in a new arrangement (Andy and Tammy this time) for our second of two episodes on what’s happening in Palestine. Our special guest is Esmat Elhalaby, a post-doc at UC Davis who will soon join the faculty of the University of Toronto.
Esmat tells us about his family ties to Palestine, especially Gaza, the scope of recent bombings by Israel, and what is excluded and silenced by the US media’s framing. He also places US actions—and Americans’ evolving views—in the context of broader global support for the Palestinian people and explains why we should revisit and revive histories of internationalism.
Finally, we discuss the poet Rashid Hussein, the late Edward Said’s seminal book Orientalism, the metaphor of Palestine for “the east,” and the historical possibilities and limits for pan-Asian + Asian-American + anti-colonial solidarity — all covered in + inspired by Esmat’s recent essay about the new biography of Edward Said.
This week we talked with Joshua Leifer, an editor at Jewish Currents, about the ongoing military violence against Palestinian communities in Gaza this past month (for those keeping track, Josh helped organize that Jewish Current-TTSG webinar from two weeks ago!)
(Tammy unfortunately had to sit out today’s episode with a last-second conflict 😔 )
We talk to Josh about his recently co-authored explainer on the clashes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, resistance from Palestinian groups and the Israeli Left, and the role of Biden and US (and international) solidarity.
Also: does 2021 represent a turning point in debates over Israel/Palestine in the US? Comparisons and connections to BLM and other protests against settler colonialism worldwide? And Josh’s personal experiences navigating Jewish-American debates, Zionism and anti-Zionism, and diasporic internationalist organizing.
Other links from the conversation + recommendations for further reading:
Andy here with a Friday episode in discussion with historian Meghna Chaudhuri (NYU, Boston College) on the COVID disaster currently unfolding in India: the officially reported death count is 240,000 but may actually be more than one million.
Meghna and I talk about what everyday life has been like for her, quarantining with family in Kolkata during this second wave, which broke out last month -- from the free-for-all search for treatments and hospital supplies to navigating misinformation around vaccines and medicines.
We also assess the past year of governance by the ruling party BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi; why this wave is not just a natural but also political disaster; the BJP’s longstanding “anti-science” stance and the appeal of the BJP’s perverted anti-imperialism in an economically stagnant India; misinformation in both corporate and social media (“Whatsapp Uncles”); and why we should probably not expect an international panacea to save India in the short-term (e.g., the TRIPS waiver) and instead focus on some very basic questions about competent local governance.
A long but focused discussion this week—on two new essays that attempt to write recent history.
First, Tobi Haslett’s “Magic Actions” (n+1), recovering the explosive potential of last year’s George Floyd uprising, institutional attempts to domesticate it, and ongoing struggles for abolition and Black liberation.
Second, Brendan O’Connor’s “When the Party’s Over” (The Baffler), a look at social-democratic politics after the thrill and demise of the Bernie campaign, the drudgery of party work, politician fandom, and finding a (new) base for socialism in 2021.
ICYMI: Our conversation with the good folks at Jewish Currents, archived on YouTube:
Thanks to everyone who came to our picnic in Brooklyn on May 2! And thanks also to our listeners who gathered for a hike, book chat, and carbs in Los Angeles this past weekend!
This is Jay. This week, we have my conversation with sociologist, writer, and data artist Tamara K. Nopper. She’s been an invaluable resource for me for years now — if I ever actually sound like I know what I’m talking about, it’s likely because of something Tamara sent me to read over the years. Today, we talk about this moment that I’ve been fascinated with for years — what happened after ‘92, not just in terms of what happened on the ground in Black and Korean communities, but also within the academy, where a seemingly new type of scholarship emerged to make sense of it all.
We talk about that, Korean banks, “the secret history” of Third Worldism, and a whole lot more. There’s a lot we agree about but also a lot we disagree about on these topics.
Tamara recently did a great talk with our friends at the Asian American Writer’s Workshop. Watch it!
Thanks to everyone who made it out to the inaugural TTSG picnic this past weekend! We had a huge turnout. And thanks again to everyone who joined in our first book club, where we discussed Alien Capital. The building of the community both on the discord and on social media has been really overwhelming. If you’d like to join, please either subscribe to the newsletter on Substack or on patreon at patreon.com/ttsgpod.
thanks!
Jay
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This week, we begin with a guessing game from George Mason University’s “Speech Accent Archive” (thanks, listener Jai Kang!). Join us and guess along as we make horribly essentialist assumptions about Asian accents (h/t danyo and sansmouton!).
To guide our conversation, we rely primarily on a recent piece by Alexander Zaitchik at The New Republic that explains how Bill Gates, the Gates Foundation, Big Pharma, and global intellectual-property rules have brought us to this point. How should we understand this moment in the context of the last 30 years? Can ordinary people defeat supra-state oligarchs?
We spoke with special guest Michelle Zauner aka Japanese Breakfast about her memoir, Crying in H Mart; her forthcoming album, Jubilee; her life as an artist; and how to cook with Maangchi.
Enjoy!
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A special episode this week with filmmaker Ursula Liang about her new film Down a Dark Stairwell. It’s out now on PBS and we hope everyone who listens to the show watches this nuanced, thoughtful and brave film. I (Jay) first saw Ursula’s work in 9-Man, a film about sports in Chinatown. Since then, I’ve followed her career carefully because what she does — deep community reporting, thoughtful portrayals of the concerns of all types of people, and the care with which she makes her films — exemplifies everything good about journalism and documentary filmmaking.
This is a film about many things, but at it’s core, it’s about how two communities deal with a police killing. And through verite footage and intimate interviews, it shows how people both come together and split apart while trying to navigate problems that fall well outside the easy consensus. On the show, we talk a lot about the need to go beyond rigid identity categories and simple, doctrinaire explanations. If you want to watch what that looks like, watch this film.
The film is available in both Chinese and English — both versions available to stream here.
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As always, thanks for supporting the show. If you’re new to us, you can sign up at goodbye.substack.com, where there’s an option to subscribe for bonus episodes and access into our chat community. Or you can do the same at patreon.com/ttsgpod.
Thanks!
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe
It’s just the three of us this week, talking about the union defeat in Bessemer, Alabama, labor history, and the future of organizing in an Amazon economy.
Plus, the divergent strategies of Amazonians United and Athena; media influence (or interference?); and how the PRO Act, some decent regulation, and a huge investment in organizing could transform the labor movement.
