Novara Media
1,507 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago - ★★★★★ - 119 ratingsNovara Media is an independent media organisation addressing the issues – from a crisis of capitalism to racism and climate change – that are set to define the 21st century.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
Downstream: On Gaza, Grammar Schools and British War Crimes w/ Peter Hitchens
March 18, 2024 10:39 - 1 hour - 130 MBPeter Hitchens is an author and journalist whose contrarian takes on drug policy, education and foreign policy have found him occupying a singular place in the British media – with his brand of conservatism often angering audiences who would consider themselves staunchly conservative. He sat down with Aaron to discuss grammar schools, Gaza and Britain’s […]
ACFM Trip 41: Trust Your Gut
March 17, 2024 08:30 - 1 hour - 111 MBFrom fecal transplants to the yoghurt-industrial complex, we’ve never been more absorbed in the workings of our gut. But can we trust it? Nadia, Jem and Keir investigate the mysterious connections between mind and body, reason and instinct. How did capitalism separate our minds from our bodies? Is a belief in intuition filling the gap […]
Novara FM: The Untold Histories of Black Gay Britain w/ Jason Okundaye
March 13, 2024 13:40 - 1 hour - 100 MBResearching Black British history “often feels like a rescue effort, a race against time,” writes Jason Okundaye. In his first book, he narrates the mingled histories of seven astonishing lives in the Black gay community of South London during the 1980s. The narrative he pieces together from oral history, archival research and even gossip (a […]
Downstream: Retired Major-General on Gaza, Iraq and Afghanistan w/ Charlie Herbert
March 11, 2024 16:10 - 1 hour - 108 MBMajor General Charlie Herbert has stood out in recent months for his vociferous condemnation of Israel’s war on Palestinians. His media appearances have proven vital in synthesising a moral and strategic critique of war in which civilians are treated in a manner he characterises as unprecedented. He sat down with Ash to talk about serving […]
Novara FM: Not Westminster’s Whipping Boys w/ Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram
March 07, 2024 11:55 - 56 minutes - 78.2 MBLess than 20% of the promised levelling-up projects for England have been completed. The problem lies not only with the current government, but with the whole way the UK’s political system is set up, with its whips and Lords and not a constitution in sight. So say Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram, the mayors of […]
Downstream: Britain’s Economy Will Only Get Worse Forever w/ Gary Stevenson
March 04, 2024 11:47 - 1 hour - 163 MBGary Stevenson went from being Citibank’s most profitable trader to one of the world’s most incisive critics of the financial system. Gary sat down with Aaron to discuss the lightbulb moment that led him away from trading, why economists can’t predict anything and why the UK middle class is doomed.
Novara FM: Russia After Navalny w/ Tony Wood
March 01, 2024 12:33 - 1 hour - 98.5 MBAs the war in Ukraine enters its third year, the question of what Russia is really thinking remains as crucial, and mysterious, as ever. To paint a picture of the current political climate, Richard Hames talks to Tony Wood, author of Russia Without Putin and an assistant professor of history at the University of Colorado […]
Downstream IRL: We Are in a New Cold War w/ Yanis Varoufakis
February 26, 2024 15:20 - 1 hour - 97 MBYanis Varoufakis is an economist and author who served as Greek Finance Minister in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crash. Since then, he has become one of the most sought after public speakers on the left. He joined Aaron Bastani for an IRL edition of Downstream at EartH in Hackney, North-East London to […]
ACFM Microdose: Aliens On Screen
February 25, 2024 08:00 - 1 hour - 140 MBLast time on ACFM, the gang explored the impact of UFOs on politics, from deep-state conspiracies to the Posadists. But to really understand how aliens influence our thought – and what our belief in E.T. says about ourselves – we have to go to the movies. In this Microdose, Keir, Jem and Nadia sweep through a […]
Novara FM: The Nasty Noughties w/ Owen Hatherley & Ash Sarkar
February 22, 2024 12:00 - 59 minutes - 82 MBThe 2000s in Britain was a decade of education, regeneration, falling inequality and Dizzee Rascal. But beneath the fleeting prosperity lurked a culture of cruelty. It was palpable in politicians’ disdain for single mothers, in the media’s vilification of chavs, and in TV producers’ obsession with pointing and laughing at just about everyone – but don’t […]
The US Must Stop Funding Israel | Bernie Sanders meets Ash Sarkar
February 20, 2024 12:13 - 17 minutes - 25.3 MBBernie Sanders needs no introduction. Ash caught up with the senator to talk about his new book ‘It’s OK To Be Angry About Capitalism’, the speed of political change and whether what is happening in Gaza constitutes a genocide.
Downstream: Israel Will Never Be Safe While Occupying Palestine w/ Yousef Alhelou
February 19, 2024 11:39 - 1 hour - 126 MBYousef Alhelou has spent the four or so months since October 7th covering the Israeli assault on Gaza through his Instagram account. In that time, his audience has grown by hundreds of thousands. Aaron sat down with Yousef to talk about international law, the genocide in Gaza and Britain’s complicity in it.
Novara FM: Can International Law Protect Gaza? w/ Rob Knox
February 15, 2024 15:16 - 1 hour - 124 MBAs Israel extends its bombardment of Gaza into Rafah – a supposed safe zone where 1.7 million Palestinians are seeking refuge – the limits of the “laws” of war seem horribly apparent. Following South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ last month, legal scholar Rob Knox joins Eleanor Penny to offer an urgent account of […]
Novara FM: How To Be Honest About Empire w/ Sathnam Sanghera
February 08, 2024 15:03 - 57 minutes - 79.3 MBCertain historians and politicians like to claim that the British Empire was “on balance” a good thing. Slavery was evil, they admit, but abolition was good. Racism was wrong, but free markets are desirable. In his new book Empireworld, journalist and historian Sathnam Sanghera rejects this “balance sheet” reading of history in order to wrestle […]
Downstream: Why No One Should Have More Than £10 Million w/ Ingrid Robeyns
February 05, 2024 15:12 - 57 minutes - 79.9 MBShould there be a cap on how much wealth one person can have? If we’re serious about tackling poverty, the answer can only be yes, says Ingrid Robeyns, author of Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth. Robeyns tells Ash Sarkar what a wealth cap could do for the world, how the global north is living […]
ACFM Trip 40: UFOs
February 04, 2024 13:25 - 1 hour - 118 MBShould the left care about the existence of aliens? The ACFM gang explore the impact of UFOs on political thought in this Trip. Keir, Jem and Nadia discuss the connections between UFO conspiracies and right-wing thought, why some communists think aliens will bring about world revolution, and whether Fermi’s paradox means we’re not alone, with […]
Downstream: Would the World Be Better Without Religion? w/ Aaron Bastani and Ash Sarkar
January 29, 2024 13:11 - 1 hour - 138 MBTwenty years ago, it was taken for granted that on average, people globally were shrugging off the shackles of organised religion. The world was destined for secularism. But with demographics trends in many countries pointing towards a growing religious population and with secular liberal politics failing to offer solace from falling living standards, we should […]
Novara FM: Who Dares To Rewrite 40,000 Years of History? w/ David Wengrow
January 25, 2024 12:24 - 1 hour - 117 MBThis episode was first released in November 2021. In the bestselling book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, archaeologist David Wengrow and the late anthropologist David Graeber offer a radically different story of our social evolution. Drawing on groundbreaking research gathered over a decade of collaboration, the book challenges just about everything […]
Downstream: Everything You Know About The Global Economy is Wrong w/ Philip Pilkington
January 22, 2024 12:29 - 1 hour - 122 MBWe are in a drastically different world from the one most of us grew up in. This has been proven by the rapid escalation in the events in the Middle East over the last six weeks. No longer are we in a world where, essentially, the US run the show. And this has huge global […]
ACFM Microdose: Plugged-in Protest w/ Jeremy Gilbert
January 21, 2024 08:00 - 1 hour - 99.6 MBMusic has the uncanny power to stir up big feelings, which makes it an obvious vehicle for political statements of hope, anger, despair, or how to cast your vote. In this Microdose episode to accompany ACFM’s recent Trip on Protest, Jem takes us through 60 years of plugged-in protest music – no strumming folkies or […]
Novara FM: The Novels That Inspired Class War w/ Mark Steven
January 19, 2024 08:50 - 1 hour - 84.6 MBWhat role does literature play in revolution? If the question seems bizarre to you and the answer obvious, you’re not alone. Yet some of the most important revolutionaries in history have turned to literature in times of crisis. Mao Zedong started writing poetry during the Chinese Red Army’s retreat, adopting traditional Chinese forms to do […]
Downstream: We Are in the Post-Climate Change World w/ Gaia Vince
January 15, 2024 17:50 - 1 hour - 117 MBDiscussion of climate change mainly focuses on mitigating rising temperatures, de-carbonising and getting to ‘net zero’. Author and broadcaster Gaia Vince argues that we also need to focus on how we’ll deal with with’s already happening and about to get much much worse: huge swathes of the planet becoming uninhabitable and 2 billion people needing […]
Novara FM: Escaping the Tourism Trap w/ Dean MacCannell
January 11, 2024 15:49 - 53 minutes - 74 MBJanuary is historically the busiest month of the year for holiday bookings. But if you’ve ever felt uncomfortable with the idea of being a tourist, you’re not the first. Back in 1976, anthropologist Dean MacCannell theorised both our drive to see the world and its manipulation by capitalism in his book The Tourist: A New […]
Downstream: White Holes and Radical Politics w/ Carlo Rovelli
January 01, 2024 09:00 - 1 hour - 122 MBFrom his radical youth in 1970s Italy to his research as one of the world’s leading theoretical physicists, Carlo Rovelli is as comfortable talking politics as he is explaining quantum theory. He sat down with Aaron to talk about the future of Europe, his theory of white holes, and why we’re not actually living in […]
Novara FM: The People Vs Football w/ Juliet Jacques & Tom Williams
December 28, 2023 12:30 - 57 minutes - 79.9 MBIs football the place for political struggle? Is there a limit to the success of fan-owned clubs? How disappointed can we be when pundits and players turn out not to be comrades? Cultural critic Juliet Jacques and Pro Revolution Soccer host Tom Williams unite for a conversation inspired by Mickaël Correia’s book, The People’s History […]
Downstream: 2023 Year in Review
December 24, 2023 08:00 - 1 hour - 86.6 MBFor this end-of-year edition of Downstream, the Novara Media team look back on the biggest stories of the year. Ash Sarkar is joined by Moya Lothian-McLean, Michael Walker and Owen Jones to talk about the Labour Party, the climate crisis, the rise of AI and the war on Gaza. From clouds brightening to prospects dimming, […]
ACFM Microdose: A Festive 50 For 2023
December 22, 2023 12:00 - 56 minutes - 77.5 MBThe ACFM gang get together for the last time this year to deliver a Festive 50. Keir, Jem and Nadia select the best bits of culture and politics from 2023, from music, films, books to games, strikes and actions. Unwrap to find sci-fi blaxploitation, comedy history, gobby glam-punk, Judge Dredd analysis, a fresh angle on Silicon […]
Novara FM: It’s A Wonderful Life w/ James Butler
December 21, 2023 12:16 - 1 hour - 99.6 MBReleased in 1946, Frank Capra’s fable of Christmas despair in small town America has become – rather improbably – a staple of festive television. Starring Jimmy Stewart as virtuous everyman George Bailey, It’s A Wonderful Life is not just a feelgood tale of moral redemption, but a clue to the shifting social terrain of post-war America. Is […]
Downstream: The Plan To Privatise Everything w/ Brett Christophers
December 18, 2023 12:05 - 1 hour - 110 MBAsset management companies like Blackrock, Vanguard and Macquarie have avoided real scrutiny for decades, but their secretive activities are starting to attract attention from political researchers and academics. What do these companies do, and what risk do they pose to society? Author and academic Brett Christophers sets out to answer this question in his new […]
ACFM Trip 39: Protest
December 17, 2023 08:00 - 1 hour - 144 MBMillions have protested against the bombing of Gaza by taking part in marches, boycotts, sit-ins and other demonstrations. But what difference does it make, either to the world or to ourselves? The gang confront a contentious topic in this Trip. Do “A to B” marches ever achieve anything? What about joining hands around an RAF […]
Novara FM: Palestine 2048 w/ Basma Ghalayini
December 15, 2023 14:51 - 54 minutes - 75.2 MBScience fiction isn’t a mode usually associated with Palestinian literature, perhaps because dreams of the future seem like a luxury when you can barely hold onto your past, or even present. In 2019, translator and editor Basma Ghalayini asked 12 Palestinian authors to imagine their world in 2048 – a century after the Nakba that […]
Downstream: This Damage Cannot Be Reversed w/ Daniel Levy
December 11, 2023 10:19 - 1 hour - 91.6 MBDaniel Levy has had a front row seat at some of the most consequential peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine in the last two decades, as president of the U.S./Middle East Peace Project and as an adviser to former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak. He sat down with Ash Sarkar to talk about the failure […]
Novara Live Extra: Israel’s Illegal War w/ Norman Finkelstein
December 07, 2023 12:58 - 56 minutes - 78.1 MBOn Novara Live this week, Michael Walker spoke to renowned political scientist and activist Norman Finkelstein about Israel’s assault on Gaza and the collapse of the ceasefire. In this extended interview, they discuss the relationship between Hamas and Hezbollah, the use of human shields, and whether US pressure can restrain Israel’s “high-tech massacre”. Subscribe to […]
Downstream: We Don’t Understand History w/ Blindboy
December 05, 2023 10:58 - 1 hour - 109 MBBlindboy Boatclub is the Irish broadcaster, author and musician behind The Blindboy Podcast, a massively popular podcast mixing short fiction, comedy and interviews. His new short story collection, Topographia Hibernica, is inspired by the human, animal and emotional geography of Ireland. Blindboy sat down with Ash for a freewheeling discussion about everything from Eminem’s ’90s […]
Novara FM: Fascism Is Not The Exception w/ Alberto Toscano
December 01, 2023 12:46 - 1 hour - 95.7 MBIn recent years we’ve spent a lot of time arguing about fascism – what it means, what it looks like, and how we would know if it had returned. That typically brings us back to the European fascism of ’30s and ’40s, with its uniforms, symbols, marches and camps. But the philosopher Alberto Toscano, currently teaching […]
Downstream: The History of Israel’s War on Palestine w/ Rashid Khalidi
November 27, 2023 19:26 - 53 minutes - 73.8 MBTo really understand what’s going in Israel, you need to get your history straight. Rashid Khalidi is one of the foremost historians of the Middle East and the author of several books on the region’s history, including The Hundred Years’ War On Palestine. On the day of the ceasefire in Gaza, he guides Ash through […]
Novara FM: New Cities, Old Scams w/ Quinn Slobodian
November 23, 2023 12:46 - 1 hour - 110 MBBusiness is booming for architects and property investors right now, with masterplans being unveiled for dozens of new cities around the world. The hi-tech promise of NEOM, Saudi Arabia’s proposed new desert metropolis, is only the most discussed of these visions – others are being drawn up in Indonesia, China and Senegal. What sets these […]
Downstream: Does the Labour Party Care About Palestine? w/ Zarah Sultana
November 20, 2023 13:18 - 56 minutes - 78.5 MBZarah Sultana is one of the youngest MPs in Parliament and has faced intense hostility from the right of the Labour Party since Keir Starmer’s ascent to leader. The MP for Coventry South sat down with Ash Sarkar to talk about the reality of being a Muslim woman in the Labour Party, her interactions with […]
Novara FM: Why Posh People Have Bad Taste w/ Nathalie Olah
November 16, 2023 18:03 - 1 hour - 102 MBDolly Parton was right, as usual, when she revealed that “it costs a lot of money to look this cheap”. But who decided rhinestones were tacky in the first place? Style is a matter of taste, yet taste itself is a a matter of money, morality and identity, as the writer and critic Nathalie Olah […]
Downstream: The Future of Money w/ Brett Scott
November 13, 2023 12:22 - 1 hour - 122 MBWe’re heading towards a cashless society. With the dominion of Visa and Mastercard showing no sign of shrinking, it’s becoming increasingly necessary to scrutinise what this shift towards virtual money really means. Brett Scott is an author and former banker who is deeply committed to evaluating the dangers of removing cash as a payment system. […]
Novara FM: Engine of Immortality w/ Jeff Jarvis
November 10, 2023 17:16 - 1 hour - 94 MBFor 500 years, societies have been shaped by the authority and permanence of the printed word. What do we have to lose – or gain – when the internet renders print culture obsolete? Jeff Jarvis thinks we should look to the early print era, when Johannes Gutenberg’s invention caused a moral panic across Europe, for clues […]
Downstream: We Must Get Ready For An Emergency w/ Slavoj Žižek
November 06, 2023 13:13 - 1 hour - 131 MBSlavoj Žižek is perhaps the most famous living Marxist philosopher. This year he will publish three books on topics ranging from the nature of freedom to his deeply pessimistic view of the future. Slavoj sat down with Aaron for a typically provocative, freewheeling and humorous conversation spanning ideas from Stalinism to Zionism to Eurocentrism. He […]
ACFM Trip 38: Movement and Stillness
November 05, 2023 08:30 - 1 hour - 154 MBEver feel like there’s too much change these days? Don’t worry, you’re not (necessarily) becoming more conservative. On this Trip, Nadia, Jem and Keir think about the ebb and flow of political currents, social movements and our inner lives. What’s the difference between being still and being stuck? When does a campaign turn into a […]
Novara FM: In Search of Red Africa w/ Kevin Okoth
November 02, 2023 12:37 - 1 hour - 110 MBIn the second half of the 20th century, revolutionaries across Africa were striving towards a decolonised future that never fully materialised. Folding together Marxism and Black radicalism, the global project of Third Worldism envisaged complete liberation, not only from colonial powers but from every kind of oppression. Kevin Okoth, a political theorist who grew up […]
Downstream: How Protest Movements Fall Apart w/ Vincent Bevins
October 30, 2023 12:13 - 1 hour - 112 MBThe 2010s were a time of mass protest, from the Arab Spring uprisings to Occupy Wall Street, Euromaidan and Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement. Many of these movements shared a ‘horizontalist’ or leaderless approach, and most of them ended in failure. Why? American journalist Vincent Bevins talks to Ash about the pitfalls of protest and what […]
Novara FM: Emergency Brake! On The Road With Just Stop Oil
October 25, 2023 10:42 - 55 minutes - 77.4 MBJust Stop Oil is a group focused on climate change. So what were they doing blocking the path of a coachload of migrants last week? It all has to do with the effects of a warming world and predictions about the displacement of millions of people. In this episode, Richard Hames follows JSO activists as […]
Downstream: Philosophy’s Biggest Pessimist w/ John Gray
October 23, 2023 11:50 - 1 hour - 124 MBJohn Gray’s writing on political philosophy is not easily pigeonholed. Over the last half century he has explored ideas that span the whole political spectrum, and pissed off just about everybody with his central thesis that growth and progress are not inevitable. In his latest book, The New Leviathans, his attention turns to the changing […]
Novara FM: Truth That Only Fiction Reveals w/ Pankaj Mishra
October 19, 2023 12:09 - 53 minutes - 73.6 MBAfter 9/11, the writer and essayist Pankaj Mishra found himself losing faith in journalism’s ability to convey the complexity and nuance of the situation. Much of what he knew of the world, he realised, from history to political psychology, had originally been gleaned from fiction. Since then, Mishra has published several novels – including last year’s Run […]
Downstream: The Left Is Traumatised w/ Gary Younge
October 16, 2023 12:48 - 1 hour - 117 MBFrom his early career following Nelson Mandela on the campaign trail to his stint as US correspondent for the Guardian, Gary Younge has long been one of the most thoughtful and compassionate voices on the British left. He joins Ash Sarkar to discuss his eventful career in journalism, his experiences of reporting in Soviet Russia, […]
Novara FM: Crossing the Class Divide w/ Lynsey Hanley
October 12, 2023 12:41 - 57 minutes - 79.3 MBBorn and raised on an ‘overspill’ estate in Birmingham, the writer Lynsey Hanley has experienced what a politician would call social mobility. In her books on housing estates and the British class system, she uses her own life to think through the psychosocial dimensions of crossing the class divide. In the third episode of our […]