Ep 423 - High School Students Unite! w/ Aaron G. Fountain, Jr.

Ep 423 - High School Students Unite! w/ Aaron G. Fountain, Jr.

Author: David Parsons January 21, 2026 Duration: 1:00:44

This week we're talking with Aaron G. Fountain, Jr. about his new book High School Students Unite! Teen Activism, Education Reform, and FBI Surveillance in Postwar America (UNC Press, 2025). By shifting focus from college campuses to American high schools, Fountain's work uncovers a whole world of 1960s and 1970s activism by young people around the country, who fought for their own rights within a larger struggle for social, racial, and economic justice. In this conversation, he shares some of the most compelling revelations he's discovered in oral history interviews, underground newspaper archives, and FBI records, and reflects on the role that high schoolers play in today's chaotic political landscape.

Become a Nostalgia Trap Patron to access all our bonus episodes, including weekly News Trap updates.

 


The conversations on Nostalgia Trap move beyond simple reminiscence, probing the powerful and often misleading pull of the past on our present. Hosted by historian and writer David Parsons, this podcast carefully untangles the threads connecting American history, contemporary politics, and the shared stories of pop culture. Each episode is built around a deep dive conversation, where the familiar narratives we tell ourselves about who we are are examined and challenged. You’ll hear how yesterday’s policy decisions echo in today’s headlines and how a forgotten film or a hit song can reveal the anxieties of its era. The goal isn’t just to inform, but to question the comforting allure of a supposedly simpler time, revealing how nostalgia itself can be a trap that shapes our collective understanding. This is a space for thoughtful, nuanced discussion that respects the complexity of the past while critically engaging with its legacy. For anyone interested in the forces that have shaped the American experience, from its founding ideals to its latest cultural moments, Nostalgia Trap offers a necessary and compelling perspective. Tune in for a podcast that consistently demonstrates how history is never truly behind us.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Nostalgia Trap
Podcast Episodes
News Trap 1.10.25 - Let 'Em Burn w Justin Rogers-Cooper (PREVIEW) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 7:32
Fires in Los Angeles unleash a wave of online hate from the left and right. What chance do we have to mitigate the coming climate change disasters if the population's reactions are driven by algorithms that massage and i…
Ep 401 - Love Means Research w/ David Humphries [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:29:04
This week I talk with David Humphries, a professor of English at Queensborough Community College in New York City, about his excellent project Happy Nostalgia: Making Connections with the Music of the '90s, which collect…
Ep 400 - The Disney Revolt w/ Jake S. Friedman [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:04:21
A critical but often overlooked chapter in American labor history, the animator's strike that shook the Walt Disney Corporation in 1941 was part of a wave of labor struggle in World War II era Hollywood. Jake S. Friedman…
Ep 399 - Severance/Doppelganger w/ Justin Rogers-Cooper (PREVIEW) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 7:00
This week we watched the excellent Apple TV series Severance and put it in conversation with Naomi Klein's latest book Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World. Both texts explore how the concept of "doubles" plays out…
News Trap 11.25.24 - Tending the Light [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:24
Musk's endgame on environmental regulations, universities bracing for a war on DEI and critical race theory, Houthi pirates drawn to their deaths in Ukraine, national economies bracing for world war. Happy Thanksgiving!…
Nostalgia Trap - Ep 398: In Levittown's Shadow w/ Tim Keogh [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:10:52
Tim Keogh is an Associate Professor of History at the Queensborough Community College in New York City. His book In Levittown's Shadow: Poverty in America's Wealthiest Postwar Suburb turns a common American story on its…
News Trap 10.14.24 - Goodbye to Reality [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 33:00
Armed militias roam the hurricane ravaged wastelands of North Carolina, no one wants children and it's not because of the economy, Apple's Vision Pro is a massive failure, we're stepping off the ship of rational discours…