This is a regular feature for paid subscribers wherein I write a little bit about what I’ve been reading and/or watching.

If you’re not yet a paid subscriber but regularly read, enjoy, or share Unpopular Front, please consider signing up. This newsletter is completely reader-supported and represents my primary source of income. At 5 dollars a month, it’s less than most things at Starbucks, and it’s still less than the “recession special” at Gray’s Papaya — $7.50 for two hot dogs and a drink.

You can buy “When the Clock Broke,“ now available in paperback wherever books are sold. If you live in the UK, it’s also available there.

This morning, I have for you:

• An event at the University of Chicago.

• A conversation with Pankaj Mishra.

• Natasha Stagg’s Grand Rapids.

• Hadash MK Ofer Cassif on the future of Israel.

• Przeworski, McManus, and Tooze on possible sources of hegemony.

On Wednesday, October 8th, I’ll be giving a talk at the University of Chicago, courtesy of the College of Law, Letters, and Society and the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory. It is free and open to the public.

I spoke to Pankaj Mishra about his most recent book The World After Gaza, the uses and abuses of Holocaust memory, nationalism, anti-colonial movements, Modi’s India, and what it can tell us about the
United States. I’m still not the most suave talk show host, but my awkwardness is more than made up for by Mishra’s eloquence. I hope you find it edifying.

Listen now · 50:01

I’m going to try to do more author interviews. My next one will be with sociologist Dylan Riley, author of The Civic Foundations of Fascism in Europe. Riley has a recent post on New Left Review’s Sidecar blog entitled “Post Mass Culture” that deals with “the fragmentation of mass culture, of opinion, of ‘common sense.’”

Natasha Stagg’s fourth book and second novel Grand Rapids will be released this coming week from Semiotext(e). Read an excerpt in n+1 and check out her 2008 diary in The Paris Review.