Cursed Objects
SamfunnHistorieImagine ‘show and tell’, but about how humanity has gone wrong. A podcast about big ideas, weird history - and tat. Join Dr Kasia Tee and Dan Hancox as they get drunk in the gift shop with the Angel of History. Find us also on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Siste episoder av Cursed Objects podcast
- Baby on Board! Ft. Charlotte Lydia Riley (00:58:57)
“I have been objectified as a vehicle”. We are delighted to welcome back our most-returning guest, as the brilliant historian and author Charlotte Lydia Riley talks us through the cursed world of being pregnant in public; about the way pregnant women – and, in different ways, mothers! – are treated by a frequently confused society. Why is there so much twee culture surrounding pregnancy, and how has it become so common to infantilise expectant mothers? And what is the role of the pin badge, as a way of announcing who we are? This takes us into discussing public information films, government propaganda, behavioural ‘nudge’ messaging (“don’t swim in gravel pits!”), ‘chivalry’ and how people behave around each other on trains and buses. Also: what does it mean that Starmer's government is one of fare evasion officers, not bus conductors? Dr Charlotte Lydia Riley is a historian of twentieth-century Britain at the University of Southampton, specialising in questions about empire, politics, culture and identity. She is the author of Imperial Island: A History of Empire in Modern Britain and the co-author of Is Free Speech Under Threat? Listen to her first Cursed Objects episode here: https://www.cursedobjects.co.uk/episodes/rainy-empire-island Also, thanks again for your patience while we a) put on a very successful two-month-long exhibition, and b) had a break over the summer. If you'd like to join our Patreon, it is still only £4 a month, and there are 30+ bonus episodes in there already - our next episode will be Patreon-only: https://www.patreon.com/c/cursedobjects
- The Rollneck of Contrition (00:56:01)
Sit down please. We have something very serious to tell you. We have made a severe and continuous lapse in our judgement. We are sorry if you feel offended, for some reason. We are sorry if you feel like you've been scammed - please believe that that was never our intention. WE'RE SORRY, OKAY!!!! After a summer taking some time to reflect on our mistakes and do the work, we are so back - talking public apology videos, Dapper Laughs, public accountability, crocodile tears, Blue Peter, Boris Johnson and why wearing a rollneck might be a sign that you have sinned. One thing Kasia and Dan will never apologise for: being back (so back), with a bunch of great new episodes in the tank for the weeks ahead. Thanks for your patience while we a) put on a very successful two-month-long exhibition, and b) had a break over the summer: especially huge thanks to our Patreon subscribers - you'll be getting regular Patreon-only episodes again now. If you'd like to join our Patreon, it is still only £4 a month, and there are 30+ bonus episodes in there already: https://www.patreon.com/c/cursedobjects Also a small content note: this is a light-hearted episode, but some of the things the public figures are apologising for include rape jokes and visiting a 'suicide forest', which are rather more grim, in case you'd rather avoid.
- War, Memory and Tat, LIVE - with Dr Charlotte Lydia Riley, Luke Turner and Kate Clements (00:58:44)
Coming to you LIVE from the Cursed Objects in Museum Shops exhibition, with three very special guests: Dr Charlotte Lydia Riley, Luke Turner and Kate Clements. It's another lively live show, exploring war museums and their merch from several angles. How do war museums navigate ‘selling’ histories of death and destruction to their visitors? What can replica First World War trench whistles and Panzerfaust soft toys tell us about the changing relationship between the museum, its shop and its visitors? And what happens when museum shops themselves become sites of conflict, as in the recent ‘culture wars’ over the National Trust's ‘vegan’ scones? This event was recorded live as part of the event series connected to the Cursed Objects in Museum Shops exhibition at the Peltz Gallery. The exhibition is FREE and runs until 26 June, Mon-Fri 10am- 8pm. For more information, see here. (You've still got a few days left to see it!!) Our fabulous guests: Dr Charlotte Lydia Riley is a historian of twentieth-century Britain at the University of Southampton, specialising in questions about empire, politics, culture and identity. She is the author of Imperial Island: A History of Empire in Modern Britain and the co-author of Is Free Speech Under Threat? Luke Turner is an author and editor. His most recent book Men at War: Loving, fighting, lusting, remembering 1939-1945 explores masculinity and sexuality within the memory of the Second World War. His first book, Out of the Woods, was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize. Luke co-founded the influential music website The Quietus. Kate Clements is the author of Total War: A People’s History of the Second World War and The Royal Family in Wartime. She curated the award-winning Second World War Galleries at the Imperial War Museums, and is a former curator of the Churchill War Rooms. Kate is currently Curator of the Tower of London. With thanks to Jade Bailey for her help on the recording. This event was supported by the Centre for Museum Cultures, Birkbeck.
- Millennium Tat: New Labour and the Neoliberal Gift-Shop (00:48:34)
Coming to you LIVE... we are joined by two very special friends of the pod – artist Darren Cullen (aka Spelling Mistakes Cost Lives) and journalist and author Imogen West-Knights – as they explore the spirit of the millennium via the museum gift shop. New Labour were great proponents of the culture industries, and made admission to the UK’s national museums free in 2001. Did this and grand projects like the Millennium Dome change our relationship with museums? The podcast also explores how the contents of the museum gift shop have changed in the 21st century – and what this might tell us about the evolving nature of consumer capitalism. This event was recorded live as part of the event series connected to the Cursed Objects in Museum Shops exhibition at the Peltz Gallery. The exhibition is FREE and runs until 26th June, Mon-Fri 10am- 8pm. For more information, see here. (You've only got two weeks left to see it!!) About the speakers: Darren Cullen is a satirical artist, illustrator and writer, the creator of the ‘hell’ bus targeting oil companies’ greenwashing, and better known as Spelling Mistakes Costs Lives. In 2019 he co-curated the Museum of Neoliberalism, which was open until 2024. Imogen West-Knights is a freelance journalist and novelist, focusing on culture and politics for the Guardian, NY Times, FT, Slate and others. Her Guardian Long Read on the inside story of the Millennium Dome was published in 2020. With thanks to Jade Bailey for her help on the recording. This event was supported by the Centre for Museum Cultures, Birkbeck.
- Live show #2: Exhibitionary complex (00:54:07)
Back by popular demand, our second-ever live show!! Dr Kasia Tee and Dan Hancox take you behind the scenes of their recently opened exhibition ‘Cursed Objects in Museum Shops’ at the Peltz Gallery. What does the history of neon signs, Hokusai's The Great Wave off Kanagawa and Lewis Chessmen socks have in common? As ever, expect the answer to be how life under late capitalism is producing some highly questionable tat. Sound production by the amazing Jade Bailey. ——- If you missed this event, don't worry - we have two more coming up! Millennium Tat - Wed 28 May, 7-8.30pm Join Dan and Kasia and two special guests - artist Darren Cullen and writer Imogen West-Knights – as they explore the spirit of the millennium via the museum gift shop. Book your place here. War, Memory and Tat - Wed 11 June, 7-8.30pm Join Kasia, Dan and three special guests – historian Dr Charlotte Lydia Riley, author Luke Turner and curator Kate Clements – as they explore the presence of war in the museum shop. Book your place here. We hope to see some of you IRL in the next two months! And don't worry, the actual full podcasts are going to keep on coming - there will be recordings of the above on your feeds soon, and a new flurry of fresh episodes... For more Cursed Everything: https://www.patreon.com/c/cursedobjects
- Cursed Objects in Museum Shops - live exhibition extravaganza (00:14:02)
To celebrate the launch of our first ever IRL exhibition, Cursed Objects in Museum Shops (2 May-26 June), we have several events coming in May and June. All of them are FREE, all are at Birkbeck Uni, 5 mins from Euston/King's Cross, but booking a place is essential - for full details, see our vibey new website, cursedobjects.co.uk Exhibition private view - Thu 1 May, 6-8pm Book your place here. Cursed Objects Live #2 - Thu 8 May, 7-8.30pm Back by popular demand, this is our second-ever live show, for Birkbeck's Arts Week! Book your place here. Millennium Tat - Wed 28 May, 7-8.30pm Join Dan and Kasia and two special guests - artist Darren Cullen and writer Imogen West-Knights – as they explore the spirit of the millennium via the museum gift shop. Book your place here. War, Memory and Tat - Wed 11 June, 7-8.30pm Join Kasia, Dan and three special guests – historian Dr Charlotte Lydia Riley, author Luke Turner and curator Kate Clements – as they explore the presence of war in the museum shop. Book your place here. We hope to see some of you IRL in the next two months! And don't worry, the actual full podcasts are going to keep on coming - there will be recordings of the above on your feeds soon, and a new flurry of fresh episodes... now that we have a moment to breathe, and the exhibition is finally in place. For more Cursed Everything: https://www.patreon.com/c/cursedobjects
- Big in Japan (00:50:09)
The Simpsons are going to (have just been to) Japan! And they’re here to tell you about what they did on their holidays – to discuss sustainable Japanese craft techniques, heated toilet seats, and a proliferation of cheap disposable plastic. Here are some of our key findings: Don’t mistreat the indigo vats. Japanese culture is trending. £4 bowls of ramen! (Four pounds Jeremy, that’s insane.) You can find William Morris paper cups in the 100Yen store. A good loquat is hard to find. Kasia wants to meet everyone’s siblings. HUGE NEWS: Cursed Objects in Museum Shops, our first ever IRL exhibition, opens VERY soon. 2 May - 26 June, the Peltz Gallery near Euston station; details here. CURSED OBJECTS LIVE: 8 May 2025, tickets are free, but you need to sign up via our Patreon - only £4 a month! And you get 30+ free bonus episodes - with a lot more new bonus episodes to come (just as soon as the exhibition is in place, and we get a chance to breathe). VISIT OUR NEW WEBSITE! https://cursedobjects.co.uk/ - designed by Sophie Monk.
- YESisode - Yoko Ono fridge magnet (00:50:34)
YES you can! SI se puede! Say YES to adventures. Say YES to life. Say YES to your boss (however dumb and awful their suggestion!). This week, Kasia and Dan are taking on 21st century positivity culture, YES men and women, Dice men, negative Nancies, toxic white-collar culture, wellness gurus, FOMO, JOMO, YOLO and YOKO (Ono). When did it become culturally hegemonic that you have to say yes to everything? Smile through the pain baby! ""“You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.” - Wayne Gretzky" - Michael Scott" - Dan and Kasia" Sign up to our Patreon NOW to get first ticket news about the live events around our upcoming Cursed Objects exhibition at the Peltz Gallery in May and June! Theme music: Mr Beatnick Artwork: Archie Bashford
- Straight off the Dome ft. Imogen West-Knights (00:59:35)
Roll-up, roll-up for the biggest tent of all! We’re launching into 2025 with a very special guest, Imogen West-Knights, and an absolutely vast cursed object, containing lots of smaller ones. That’s right, we’re turning the clock back a full quarter of a century to revisit the universal mockery, dodgy sponsors, New Labour hubris, sweet childhood memories, general hilarity, bomb threats and national self-loathing that all came messily, hilariously together to fill the Millennium Dome. At the time, it was viewed as the white elephant that would stomp over all other white elephants, the most embarrassing of political failures – but Imogen’s obsessive reporting on the Dome’s history has turned up a more interesting verdict altogether. Was this the ultimate symbol of the early Blair years, for better and worse? What was the Dome Minister’s deep connection to the 1951 Festival of Britain? What was it actually like to visit the Dome as a child in 2000? Should we all be a bit less cynical about massive projects like this? Just how tacky was it in the end? And what was the true spirit of the Willennium - sorry, millennium? Thanks so much to the brilliant Imogen West-Knights for sharing her worrying level of expertise on the Dome with us – you can read her 2020 Guardian Long Read on the Dome here. And buy her excellent debut novel Deep Down here. She is on BlueSky @ImogenWK. Big thanks to Cursed Objects listener Tilly Hawkins for also suggesting the 'Been there, DOME that' badge for our upcoming installation at the Peltz, and to H.O.M.E for providing a studio - check them out if you're a creative looking for a space to work in London. Theme music: Mr Beatnick Artwork: Archie Bashford
- Cursed Objects on Location! At a Haunted Seaside Hotel (00:18:10)
It's a Spooky Christmas special! This week's Cursed Objects is a little bit less Stuart Hall, and a little bit more Derek Acorah, with an episode recorded on location in St Leonards, from the musty heart of a crumbling royal seaside hotel, ft. spluttering pipes, ancient heaters that smell of burning dust, random insects, rotting sash windows, damp everywhere and a fascinating history. Queen Victoria herself signed the visitors’ book, as Princess of Prussia, no less. Dan and Kasia lean into the weird muzak and faded 1920s glamour and ask, what the hell is going on on the 3rd floor? Could it be MURDER, or HAUNTING? What music do you imagine freemasons listening to? Will Kasia lick the Grade II listed staircase? Will Dan ride down the bannisters? What do Morrissey and Chris Rea have to do with all this? Theme music: Mr Beatnick Artwork: Archie Bashford
- Happy Trad-mas ft. Mr Beatnick and Archie Bashford (01:14:02)
Back by popular demand, it's our annual Christmas party! And this year we’re wrestling with TRADITION. Are you making a list, and checking it twice – just as you always do? Have you demanded figgy pudding from your local landowner – and threatened violence if you don’t get some? Are you hanging up your stockings on the wall with Noddy Holder? What traditions define your Christmas? We’ve got Christmas tree gherkins, obscene Christmas jumpers, schmaltzy John Lewis adverts, and pop songs that make your ears bleed. It truly is the most cursed time of the year! Theme music: Mr Beatnick Artwork: Archie Bashford
- UNLOCKED - Magna Darta dart board (01:02:33)
From Patreon to main feed: Welcome all free-born Englishmen, sovereign citizens, rebel barons and new patrons! We're talking about myths of Englishness, why the state has such a fragile ego, a Covid-denying soft play centre called Cirq-D-Play, and why everyone is obsessed with an 807-year-old legal document that had to be rewritten several times and was then scrapped anyway. Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick Artwork: Archie Bashford
- Subversive Coffee (00:14:39)
This week, it's a deep dive into a steaming mug of cawfee. Hot java. A cup of Joe. Black gold. This is an episode about "the abominable, heathen-ish liquor" they tried to ban (they really did), and the array of wild political, social, cultural and moral meanings that have been attached to it over the centuries. What is a "sober intoxicant", what do genuine psychonauts make of it, and in what ways is coffee ‘more than a drink’, from its colonial history, to 17th century coffee houses, to its social role today? And then there's this incredibly cursed 21st century mug: what is with this cringeworthy tendency to dress things which are quotidian and ultimately wholesome up as if they are illicit, counter-cultural, or subversive? Where does this ‘Brewdog-coded’ recuperation of transgressive words, behaviours and signs come from? Also: which famous writer swallowed handfuls of ground coffee beans, until it made him sick? Which awful magazines were founded in 18th-century coffee houses? Have you heard of London chain 'Fuckoffee', and do you think we can get it shut down for being the lamest place on earth? Theme music: Mr Beatnick Artwork: Archie Bashford
- Multitudes - Live From the Crowd! Ft. Hettie O’Brien (00:17:16)
As a Cursed Objects bonus, without an actual cursed object, we present a live recording of Dan in conversation about his brand new book Multitudes: How Crowds Made the Modern World, recorded with friend of the pod, the brilliant journalist Hettie O’Brien at Burley Fisher Books in London on 30 October 2024. Multitudes is out now, you can buy it here, or read various extracts and crowds-related articles on Dan’s substack here. Hettie’s book Diminishing Returns will be published in 2026, and until then, you can read her incredible long reads and other journalism here at The Guardian. **** To listen to the full-length episode, and 30-odd more exclusive episodes – please join our Patreon!! ** ONLY £4 A MONTH TO SUPPORT YOUR FAVOURITE CULTURAL HISTORIANS ** **** Theme music: Mr Beatnick Artwork: Archie Bashford
- Every Breath You Take ft. Dr Alice Bell (01:08:56)
Air isn't an object, right? Wrong. This week, climate comms expert and historian Dr Alice Bell makes Dan and Kasia think hard about ephemerality via a jam jar of polluted air, captured 'fresh' from the Euston Road in north London. In doing so they explore the history of the climate crisis – where it came from, who covered it up, and when people started noticing we were ruining the only planet we have. Alice leads us through fog, smog and fumes, answering questions like: why were London’s famous “pea-soupers” yellow-tinged (like yellow split-peas), rather than green-tinged? Why was coal dust understood to be a sign of thriving industry and progress? Why did unwell people go to seaside resorts to “take the air”? Which popular English meal was invented purely to give people a social activity indoors, away from the smog? Why have children always been at the forefront of the climate movement, from 1980s episodes of Blue Peter to the school strikes today? What do tobacco and fossil fuel lobbying have in common? Elsewhere, there is talk of Shell: The Musical, whaling ships, Captain Planet, Margaret Thatcher, and an answer to the biggest climate question of all, the one you've all been asking: what does Ludacris have to do with arctic drilling? Dr Alice Bell is Head of Policy for Climate and Health at the Wellcome. Her book ‘Our Biggest Experiment: A History of the Climate Crisis’ (Bloomsbury, 2021) is available now, and is captivating, enlightening stuff - get involved! **** For the full-length episode, and 30-odd more exclusive episodes – please join our Patreon!! ** ONLY £4 A MONTH TO SUPPORT YOUR FAVOURITE CULTURAL HISTORIANS ** **** Theme music: Mr Beatnick Artwork: Archie Bashford
- Kill the Boss in Your Head (00:14:30)
Is there actually any moral value to hard work? From the Dignity of Labour to CEO Mindset, Girlbossing and Instagram Hustle propaganda, our entire culture is full of messages that working hard and 'loving what you do' will make you a good person. Aspiring idlers Kasia and Dan are here to tell you why that's wrong. Prompted in part by the Wellcome Collection's new 'Hard Graft' exhibition, we discuss bullshit jobs, proper binmen, modern slavery, and the horrifying frequency with which people are injured, maimed and killed in their line of work, from children in 19th century cotton mills, to exploited migrant workers and climate-related heat deaths in the 21st century. More light-heartedly, we discuss our most hated teenage jobs, and what the ideal length for a working week would be - 2 days? 3 days? What happened when Pret told their workers they needed to show they "aren't just here for the money"? And why does Keir Starmer think that workers and their bosses are 'on the same side'? Some links, as promised: The Four Yorkshiremen sketch Who remembers Proper Binmen? David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs Sarah Jaffe's Work Won't Love You Back Paul Myerscough on Pret and affective labour Please watch the amazing film Office Space! *** For the full-length episode, and 30-odd more exclusive episodes – please join our Patreon!! ** ONLY £4 A MONTH TO SUPPORT YOUR FAVOURITE CULTURAL HISTORIANS ** **** Theme music: Mr Beatnick Artwork: Archie Bashford
- Crap Towns and Caffs (not Cafes) ft. Isaac Rangaswami (00:46:42)
The early 2000s were a fever dream: why was pop culture so mean? Specifically, why was it acceptable to write off entire cities - and the people within them - as crap? This is the question posed by our special guest Isaac Rangaswami, journalist, writer and brains behind Instagram sensation Caffs not Cafes. Isaac’s object is the wildly popular 2003 book Crap Towns, something about half of Britain received that year as a Christmas stocking filler. How did something so cursed - so unpleasant - end up as a national publishing sensation? Were our brains all fried by lads mags, New Labour and tabloid journalism? And how did the miserably classist, sexist pop culture of the 90s and early 2000s shape a new generation of writers and social media users, to reject negative stereotypes and embrace the beauty of everyday spaces... even when they are a bit rubbish? Follow Isaac's excellent new Substack Wooden City, and his Instagram account Caffs not cafes (if you haven't already). For first news and first dibs on tickets for the next live event – as well as the full-length episode! – please join our Patreon!! ** ONLY £4 A MONTH TO SUPPORT YOUR FAVOURITE CULTURAL HISTORIANS ** Theme music: Mr Beatnick Artwork: Archie Bashford Special thanks also to Alex Rees, for helping to face audio gremlins.
- Airbnb: Prints of Thieves (00:18:40)
They are marketed as democratised holiday rentals, where you get an ‘authentic’ experience by literally living in someone's home - so why are Airbnb’s full of crap, generic art? The answer is obvious (predatory venture capitalism), but the effect is cursed in uniquely jarring ways. Welcome back from your summer holidays - to a new season of Cursed Objects! This week Kasia and Dan explore the geographically and culturally bewildering experience of looking at a monochrome, wraparound canvas print of the Manhattan skyline, in a professionally managed Airbnb located miles from New York. What does it mean to travel, when you could be anywhere in the world once you arrive? Journeying through a grimly commonplace experience of 21st century capitalism, how do identikit interiors and IKEA beakers expose Airbnb horrors we would like to pretend don’t exist? What tactics - and political might - does this rental behemoth have, and who are the people fighting back? En route, we cover authenticity, anti-tourist protests, carbon guilt and why the left maybe ought to be pro-travel, actually! *** FOR THE FULL EPISODE, please join our Patreon !! You can support us for as little as £4 a month and with that you'll get lots of extra episodes and updates about live shows (and our eternal thanks!) *** Theme music: Mr Beatnick Artwork: Archie Bashford
- Racist Mugs and Legitimate Concerns with Labour (00:22:11)
If smart, humane, pro-migration Ed Miliband really hated Labour’s infamous ‘Controls On Immigration’ coffee mug – both of his parents were Jews who escaped the Nazis and found refuge in Britain – then why did he let it happen on his watch? Why is there so much cowardice, ignorance and fiction at the heart of our immigration conversation? Why does Labour have such a toxic relationship with migrants, given that most people with migration in their recent family histories (like Dan and Kasia, indeed) are expected to vote for them? Where does the notion come from that in order to ‘defeat the far right’, you have to imitate their racist rhetoric, and repeat grim tropes like “legitimate concerns” and migrants putting “strains on public services”? As Kasia says, “Does it have to be like this?" Small boat crossings peak in August and September – four human beings drowned in the English Channel the day we recorded this episode. Nine things Starmer should do - open letter from 300 organisations working with refugees and asylum seekers End the 24/7 GPS tracking of migrants Jack Shenker’s brilliant Hostile Environment Newscast for Tortoise *** FOR THE FULL EPISODE, please join our Patreon *** Theme music: Mr Beatnick Artwork: Archie Bashford
- The Museum of Neoliberalism ft. Darren Cullen (00:50:41)
How do you start collecting objects for a cursed museum? Kasia and Dan spend all of their money in the gift shop of the Museum of Neoliberalism (well, it wouldn’t be a Museum of Neoliberalism if you left with more money than you entered with). They find a world curated by Darren Cullen - artist, activist and collector of some of the most mundanely dystopian objects imaginable. They discover corporate sponsored scout badges, chainsaws for kids and an Amazon employee’s bottle of piss. How can you represent an ideology like neoliberalism that has such far-reaching but poorly understood implications? PLUS they look at some of Darren’s own creations that mimic and subvert the horrors of the everyday: ‘baby’s first baby’, the infamous Hell bus, and a mini diorama of an Amazon ‘fulfillment centre’. But don’t worry, there are some blessed objects too - including ‘Don’t talk to them’ placards, that you can download from Darren’s website. The Museum of Neoliberalism is closing in mid-September, get down as soon as you can (and make sure you book!). If you want to hear more about Kasia and Dan's thoughts on neoliberalism (particularly in the Labour Party) find them in Rainbow Rhythms and Neoliberal Blues. You can also hear more about playmobil border force and riot cops in our episode on Dystopian Soft Play. Theme music: Mr Beatnick Artwork: Archie Bashford Special thanks also to Alex Rees, for EQ advice.
- Cursed Objects, Live! #1 Notes from the museum shop (00:15:02)
Troubling war merch, Van Gogh bucket hats, Soviet space dogs and the scourge of ‘world’ history - Kasia and Dan stage their first-ever live show to celebrate 100,000 downloads! They tell a sell-out crowd about some of their favourite cursed objects from museum shops, plus some of their favorites from the podcast. And we heard from YOU - via audience questions! Including: Why are museum shops all so same-y? Can you ever sell ‘respectful’ merch? And why is glasses cleaner one of the most successful products sold in Italian museum shops? For first news and first dibs on tickets for the next live event – as well as the full-length episode! Along with 25+ others – please join our Patreon!! ** ONLY £4 A MONTH TO SUPPORT YOUR FAVOURITE CULTURAL HISTORIANS ** Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick Artwork: Archie Bashford Special thanks also to Jade Bailey, for lending us her ears.
- Bone music, Soviet outlaws and X-ray rock ‘n’ roll ft. Stephen Coates (00:56:45)
A record etched onto an x-ray of a (probably, now) dead Soviet citizen’s head. That is the uniquely cursed object Stephen Coates came across in a Russian flea market in 2014. Weird, eerie, and almost polyphonic in quality, these DIY records captivated him and sparked a mission to find the bootleggers who had risked up to *five years* in a gulag for their love of music. How did they turn x-rays into subversive ‘rib music’? And what can a flimsy bit of plastic show us about subcultural life in the USSR? Stephen Coates hosts the fantastic Bureau of Lost Culture podcast and his band, The Real Tuesday Weld, are well worth a listen. He also curates various events including London Month of the Dead and Salon for the City. Kasia and Dan have signed up to their mailing lists - you should too! And if you enjoyed this episode please join our Patreon!! ** ONLY £4 A MONTH TO SUPPORT YOUR FAVOURITE CULTURAL HISTORIANS - AND GET 25+ FULL BONUS EPISODES AND A CURSED OBJECTS STICKER PACK** Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick Artwork: Archie Bashford
- The Unstoppable Many vs. The Immovable Few (Emergy P for the Snappy G) (00:22:53)
Oh god, not another one! When BREAKING NEWS bursts through the wall, we spring, gently and apologetically, into action, with a (cough) emergency p for the snappy g. That’s right guys, we’ve got a bootleg Keir Starmer mug and we’re not afraid to do a podcast about it. Real change. Change you can believe in. Change for you, change for me, change for the entire human race. This week we are talking about campaign slogans, and the surprisingly long and contested history of “for the many, not the few”. Who is the ‘many’ in this sentence?? And who are the few? How can it be that figures as diffuse as Blair, Corbyn and Starmer have all deployed the same slogan? And what was Theresa May’s unique twist on it? We also call in on one of our favourite subjects, TIME. How have the 1983, 1997, 2017 and 2019 election years come to stand-in for an entire political philosophy, and strategy? And what does it mean when election campaigns try to invoke mythical pasts – ‘we want our country back’, ‘let’s make Britain great again’ – rather than imagined or promised futures? Also, can the Microsoft Paperclip icon help our political parties make a bit more sense? And if you enjoyed this episode please join our Patreon!! ** ONLY £4 A MONTH TO SUPPORT YOUR FAVOURITE CULTURAL HISTORIANS - AND GET 25+ FULL BONUS EPISODES AND A CURSED OBJECTS STICKER PACK** Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick Artwork: Archie Bashford
- Black Frankenstein and White Corporate Diversity ft. Anamik Saha (00:51:08)
What if there was an object so cursed that it was never even made? This week we are joined by culture studies don Prof Anamik Saha to discuss anti-racism, racism and corporate diversity in pop culture - via Agatha Christie, Yellowface, American Fiction and One Day - woke agendas and cultural elites, colourblind casting, sensitivity readers and cultural consultants. What does diversity and anti-racism really mean in publishing, TV, film and music – and when is it just for show, or to assuage white guilt? What happens when a long-dominant culture is dramatically challenged, as happened in the aftermath of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests? ALSO: What does an authentic depiction of a space cowboy look like? Is it ‘race-bending’ when Anne Hathaway plays someone from Leeds? Is culture studies an entirely vibes-based discipline? You can get stuck into Anamik's brilliant, enlightening work here: https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/media/staff/4390/professor-anamik-saha. His most recent book is Race, Culture and Media (SAGE, 2021). And if you enjoyed this episode please join our Patreon!! ** ONLY £4 A MONTH TO SUPPORT YOUR FAVOURITE CULTURAL HISTORIANS - AND GET 25+ FULL BONUS EPISODES AND A CURSED OBJECTS STICKER PACK** Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick Artwork: Archie Bashford
- Hipster Analysis (00:16:03)
Were you into Cursed Objects before it was cool? Like Grandpa Simpson remembering the war, this week Dan and Kasia are holding a seance for those perennial whipping boys and girls, the hipsters – and recalling the green remembered hills of artisan beards, cereal cafes and small-batch trucker hats. Kicking off with a revisit to seminal, frequently painful 2005 sitcom Nathan Barley, we ask whether it is possible to make a defence of hipsters? Isn’t it a better world when people are enthusiastically pursuing their own mad little niches and styles – even if their moustaches look a bit daft? Why do hipsters get blamed for gentrification instead of property developers? Why did Adbusters blame them for the demise of the counter-culture? And what about the future: does the word mean anything anymore, when they sell flat whites in Costa? Are we ready to declare the hipster officially dead, and have we identified the assailant: the influencer? If you enjoyed this episode please join our Patreon!! ** ONLY £4 A MONTH TO SUPPORT YOUR FAVOURITE CULTURAL HISTORIANS - AND GET 25+ FULL BONUS EPISODES AND A CURSED OBJECTS STICKER PACK!** Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick Artwork: Archie Bashford