This Is Not My World: Art and Public Spaces in Socialist Zagreb (U Minnesota Press, 2024) examines the Group of Six Authors—a collective of young artists who staged provocative art events in the public spaces of socialist Yugoslavia during the 1970s and early 1980s. The book analyses how these spaces, which had long been forums of state ideological control, ... Show More
Yesterday
Are Capitalism and Democracy Fundamentally Incompatible? A Conversation with Mordecai Kurz
Today I'm speaking with Mordecai Kurz, Joan Kenney Professor of Economics Emeritus at Stanford University. We are discussing his latest book, Private Power and Democracy's Decline: How to Make Capitalism Support Democracy (MIT Press, 2026). After its high-water mark several deca ... Show More
1h 3m
Jul 6
Stephen Robertson, "Harlem in Disorder: A Spatial History of How Racial Violence Changed in 1935" (Stanford UP, 2024)
The violence that spread across Harlem on the night of March 19, 1935 was the first large-scale racial disorder in the United States in more than a decade and the first occurrence in the nation’s leading Black neighborhood. However, as many observers pointed out, the events were ... Show More
57m 51s
Jul 5
Hayagreeva Rao and Henrich R Greve, "Ctrl+Alt+Doubt: Decoding the Language of Online Conspiracy Talk" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Ctrl+Alt+Doubt: Decoding the Language of Online Conspiracy Talk (Oxford UP, 2026) offers a new way to understand why conspiracy theories grow and persist. Rather than treating them as cognitive errors, psychological pathologies, or products of echo chambers, Rao and Greve analyz ... Show More
1h 7m
Mar 2022
The Art World: Hope & Dread, Westward Ho!
The series heads north by northwest to Portland, Oregon to uncover a surprisingly hideous history: could it be that this hipster mecca was founded as a whites-only utopia? Answer: hell, yeah. When a curator has to rub shoulders with Neo-Nazis during the installation of her exhibi ... Show More
41m 53s
Aug 2024
Building a People's Art: Vietnam, Socialist Realism and Cultural Revolution
Ruehl Muller joins Breht to discuss his upcoming book, put out by Iskra Books, titled "Building a People's Art: Selected Works of Trường Chinh and Tố Hữu". Together, they discuss Vietnamese Socialist Realism, Maoist China, Cultural Revolution, dialectics, the death drive, fascism ... Show More
1h 44m
Nov 2023
Vid Simoniti, "Artists Remake the World: A Contemporary Art Manifesto" (Yale UP, 2023)
Artists Remake the World: A Contemporary Art Manifesto (Yale UP, 2023) puts forward an account of contemporary art’s political ambitions and potential. Surveying such innovations as evidence-driven art, socially engaged art, and ecological art, the book explores how artists have ... Show More
58m 51s
Feb 2022
Peggy Wang, "The Future History of Contemporary Chinese Art" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking to Peggy Wang about her new book, The Future History of Contemporary Chinese Art (Minnesota University Press, 2021). In the book, Wang asks readers to reconsider the term “global” and “world” in relation to the (often simplistically ... Show More
1h 8m
Jun 2021
07 Suprematism: Not All Modern Art was Made in Paris
Suprematist art appears simple and non-controversial at first glance, but these geometric paintings by Kazimir Malevich, Olga Rozanova, and El Lissitzky were revolutionary. Listen as Klaire Lockheart examines Russian avant-garde artwork and art forgeries. Artists and Artwork: Mar ... Show More
32m 4s