New Books in Science, Technology, and Society

Stefan Höltgen, "Open History: The Archaeology of Retrocomputing" (Kulturverlag Kadmos, 2021)

16 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Stefan Höltgen about his book Open History: The Archaeology of Retrocomputing (Kulturverlag Kadmos, 2021). How can historical co...

Beronda L. Montgomery, "Lessons from Plants" (Harvard UP, 2021)

15 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We know that plants are important. They maintain the atmosphere by absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. They nourish other living organisms ...

Felicia Wu Song, "Restless Devices: Recovering Personhood, Presence, and Place in the Digital Age" (InterVarsity Press, 2021)

14 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We're being formed by our devices. Unpacking the soft tyranny of the digital age, Felicia Wu Song combines insights from psychology, neuroscience, soc...

Esther Wright, "Rockstar Games and American History: Promotional Materials and the Construction of Authenticity" (de Gruyter, 2022)

13 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

For two decades, Rockstar Games have been making games that interrogate and represent the idea of America, past and present. Commercially successful, ...

Karen Hunger Parshall, "The New Era in American Mathematics, 1920–1950" (Princeton UP, 2022)

12 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In The New Era in Mathematics, 1920-1950 (Princeton University Press, 2022) Karen Parshall explores the institutional, financial, social, and politi...

Josh Chin and Liza Lin, "Surveillance State: Inside China's Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control" (St. Martin's Press, 2022)

09 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As we build the AI-powered digital economy, how far do we want to go? Surveillance State: Inside China's Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control ...

Elise Vernon Pearlstine, "Scent: A Natural History of Fragrance" (Yale UP, 2022)

08 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Plants have long harnessed the chemical characteristics of aromatic compounds to shape the world around them. Frankincense resin from the genus Boswel...

Georg Striedter, "Model Systems in Biology: History, Philosophy, and Practical Concerns" (MIT Press, 2022)

07 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Biomedical research using various animal species and in vitro cellular systems has resulted in both major successes and translational failure. In Mod...

Lucía Fernández-Amaya, "A Linguistic Overview of Whatsapp Communication" (Brill, 2022)

05 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Digital discourse has become a widespread way of communicating worldwide, WhatsApp being one of the most popular Instant Messaging tools. A Linguisti...

Justin Grimmer et al., "Text as Data: A New Framework for Machine Learning and the Social Sciences" (Princeton UP, 2022)

05 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From social media posts and text messages to digital government documents and archives, researchers are bombarded with a deluge of text reflecting the...

J. Bradford DeLong, "Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century" (Basic Books, 2020)

05 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From one of the world's leading economists, a grand narrative of the century that made us richer than ever, yet left us unsatisfied Before 1870, human...

Truck Nuts: The Political History of Trucks and Trucking

05 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The pickup truck is the symbol of rural conservative masculinity. So, it often takes centre stage in the tired culture wars between reactionary neo-po...

Jerry C. Zee, "Continent in Dust: Experiments in a Chinese Weather System" (U California Press, 2022)

05 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today Julia Keblinska and I had the pleasure of talking to Assistant Professor Jerry Zee about his book, Continent in Dust: Experiments in a Chine...

The Tamiflu Trials: Profit and Public Health

02 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Before Remdesivir and Hydroxycloroquin there was Tamiflu. To prepare for Swine Flu and Bird Flu, governments spent billions stockpiling this drug call...

88 Underwater Eye: Margaret Cohen explores the Film Aquatic

01 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Margaret Cohen joins John to discuss The Underwater Eye, which explores "How the Movie Camera Opened the Depths and Unleashed New Realms of Fantasy....

Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. Stone, "Social Media, Freedom of Speech, and the Future of Our Democracy" (Oxford UP, 2022)

01 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

One of the most fiercely debated issues of this era is what to do about "bad" speech, hate speech, disinformation, propaganda campaigns, incitement of...

The Heroin Clinic

01 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

At Crosstown Clinic, doctors are turning addiction treatment on its head: they’re prescribing heroin-users the very drug they’re addicted to. This...

This is Your Brain on Trial

31 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Imagine reading or watching The Minority Report and thinking of that as a model for the criminal justice system. Well, plenty of forensic types are ...

Property Technology

30 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of High Theory, Erin McElroy talks with Nathan Kim about Property Technology. This is the first episode in the High Theory in STEM ser...

Pathological: The Work of Dr. Charles Smith

30 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Charles Smith performed autopsies at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, ON. The cops kept turning to him with new corpses, and he kept cla...

Derailed: The Crisis of Forensic Expertise

29 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When it comes to complex social problems, us “sensible” types turn to the experts, but what if they don’t actually know what they’re talking a...

Jennifer Jill Fellows and Lisa Smith, "Gender, Sex, and Tech!: An Intersectional Feminist Guide" (Canadian Scholars, 2022)

29 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this timely collection, gender, sex, and technology are explored through an intersectional and interdisciplinary lens. Gender, Sex, and Tech!: An ...

Don’t Hate the Player: The World of E-Sports

26 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On this episode of Darts and Letters, we took a personal journey into virtual sport. Listen in as guest host (and regular lead producer) Jay Cockburn ...

Julie A. Turnock, "The Empire of Effects: Industrial Light and Magic and the Rendering of Realism" (U Texas Press, 2022)

26 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Just about every major film now comes to us with an assist from digital effects. The results are obvious in superhero fantasies, yet dramas like Roma...

Cassidy Puckett, "Redefining Geek: Bias and the Five Hidden Habits of Tech-Savvy Teens" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

25 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Picture a typical computer geek. Likely white, male, and someone you’d say has a “natural instinct” for technology. Yet, after six years teachin...

Enter the Zuckerverse: On the Metaverse and its Corporatization

25 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The term “metaverse” was coined in a 1993 science fiction novel. Since then, it’s grown from a dystopian literary concept to a reality that corp...

Alfie Bown, "Dream Lovers: The Gamification of Relationships" (Pluto Press, 2022)

24 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We are in the middle of a 'desirevolution' - a fundamental and political transformation of the way we desire as human beings. Perhaps as always, new t...

Brett Scott, "Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto, and the War for Our Wallets" (Harper Business, 2022)

24 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto, and the War for Our Wallets (Harper Business, 2022), Brett Scott tells an urgent and revelatory story about how ...

Gamify Everything: Turning Work Into Play . . . for Better and for Worse

24 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Setting goals for the new year? Learning a language? Going for a run? Delivering food? Picking packages off a warehouse shelf for delivery? There’s ...

Save the Whales: The Addictive Psychology Behind Video Games

23 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We’ll save the Moby Dick puns for the episode itself, but suffice it to say that sinister game developers are on a whale hunt. This episode, origina...

Ann Blair et al., "Information: A Historical Companion" (Princeton UP, 2021)

23 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Information is everywhere. We live in an “Information” Society. We can get more of it faster, quicker, and in more different shapes and sizes than...

Moral Kombat: How Mortal Kombat Caused Moral Outrage

22 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

You can learn much about a media and political culture by examining when it panics, and who it panics about. And we’ve always panicked about video g...

Autumn Womack, "The Matter of Black Living: The Aesthetic Experiment of Racial Data, 1880-1930" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

22 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As the nineteenth century came to a close and questions concerning the future of African American life reached a fever pitch, many social scientists a...

Adam Nocek, "Molecular Capture: The Animation of Biology" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)

17 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Molecular Capture: The Animation of Biology (University of Minnesota Press, 2021), Adam Nocek, Assistant Professor in the Philosophy of Technolo...

Paris Marx, "Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation" (Verso, 2022)

16 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation (Verso, 2022), Paris Marx identifies two convergent forces in...

Eswar S. Prasad, "The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance" (Harvard UP, 2021)

16 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution is Transforming Currencies and Finance (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2021) provides...

The Future of Net Zero: A Discussion with Eric Lonergan

16 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

There is no shortage of words written about climate change and the goal of reaching net zero - but there is a shortage of practical suggestions about ...

Joseph Mileti, "Modern Mathematical Logic" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

15 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today I had the pleasure of talking to Joe Mileti, associate professor of mathematics at Grinnell College. Even if you are not "into" math, you will ...

Made of Corn: How Genetically Modified Corn Changed Science, Academia and Indigenous Rights in Mexico (Part 2 of 2)

12 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This is part 2 of a 2-part series from Cited - the predecessor of Darts and Letters. For the final episode of our “Activism & Academia”-themed wee...

Modifying Maize: How Genetically Modified Corn Changed Science, Academia and Indigenous Rights in Mexico (Part 1 of 2)

11 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This is part 1 of a 2-part series from Cited - the predecessor of Darts and Letters. When genetically modified corn was found in the highlands of Mexi...

Christian Wolmar, "British Rail: A New History" (Michael Joseph, 2022)

11 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

You think you know British Rail. But you don't know the whole story. Now, award-winning writer Christian Wolmar provides a new perspective on national...

J. R. McNeill and Peter Engelke, "The Great Acceleration: An Environmental History of the Anthropocene since 1945" (Harvard UP, 2016)

10 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Earth has entered a new age—the Anthropocene—in which humans are the most powerful influence on global ecology. Since the mid-twentieth centur...

Twitter, Intellectual Discourse, and Humility

10 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

For this episode of How To Be Wrong, I speak with George Styles, a biochemist and author of the book Contemplation. George is also what we describe t...

Minh-Ha T. Pham, "Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Social Media's Influence on Fashion, Ethics, and Property" (Duke UP, 2022)

10 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2016, social media users in Thailand called out the Paris-based luxury fashion house Balenciaga for copying the popular Thai “rainbow bag,” usi...

M. I. Franklin, "Sampling Politics: Music and the Geocultural" (Oxford UP, 2021)

09 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Music sampling has become a predominantly digitalized practice. It was popularized with the rise of Rap and Hip-Hop, as well as ambient music scenes, ...

Lindsay Starkey, "Encountering Water in Early Modern Europe and Beyond" (Amsterdam UP, 2020)

09 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What is holding the oceans back from entirely flooding the earth? While a twenty-first century thinker may approach the answer to this question wit...

Ronald Meester and Klaas Slooten, "Probability and Forensic Evidence: Theory, Philosophy, and Applications" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

09 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Probability and Forensic Evidence: Theory, Philosophy, and Applications (Cambridge UP, 2021), Ronald Meester and Klaas Slooten address the role ...

Environmental Catastrophe

09 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode John Yargo speaks with Kim about Environmental Catastrophe. In the episode John quotes Hannah Arendt and N.K. Jemisin, discusses a Sha...

Sébastien Philippe and Tomas Statius, "Toxique: Enquête sur les essais nucléaires français en Polynésie" (Companyédition PUF/Disclose, 2021)

08 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when you bring together an important collection of previously secret archival documents dealing with France's nuclear detonations in the ...

On Online Churches

08 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Tim Hutchings is a sociologist of digital religion. His Ph.D. (Durham University, 2010) was an ethnographic study of five online Christian churche...

American Chernobyl, Part 2: The Most Poisonous Place in the USA

05 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Hanford is the most-polluted place in America. In our last episode, you heard about the nuclear plant's largely-forgotten history--how it poisoned the...

Daniel Bergner, "The Mind and the Moon: My Brother's Story, the Science of Our Brains, and the Search for Our Psyches" (Ecco, 2022)

04 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In The Mind and the Moon: My Brother’s Story, the Science of Our Brains, and the Search for Our Psyches (Ecco, 3033), Daniel Bergner examines the...

Nina Rattner Gelbart, "Minerva's French Sisters: Women of Science in Enlightenment France" (Yale UP, 2021)

04 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Minerva’s French Sisters: Women of Science in Enlightenment France (Yale University Press, 2021), Nina Gelbart, Professor of History and Anita ...

America's Chernobyl, Part 1: Living in a Poison Town

04 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of Cited: What it means to live in a place where your home can give you cancer. Richland, Washington is a company town that sprang up ...

Ellis Jones, "DIY Music and the Politics of Social Media" (Bloomsbury, 2020)

03 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Since the 1970s, there has been a rich, global lineage of broadly guitar-based music scenes which have enacted a political critique of the commercial ...

The Revolution Will Not Be Streamed: The Intellectual Culture of Twitch Streamers

03 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It was billed as “the biggest event in the history of the terminally online.” A debate: socialism vs. capitalism. On your left side, the esteemed ...

Socialise the Series of Tubes: Toward a Democratic Internet

02 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Recently a major outage took nearly a third of Canada offline. No phone, no internet… even access to 911 got shut down in some places. So why does o...

Lost Utopias: A History of World’s Fairs

01 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Techno-utopianism is everywhere. It’s driven by a new tech-bro/crypto culture, supported by online hordes of true believers, and couched in philosop...

Mark Solovey, "Social Science for What? Battles over Public Funding for the 'Other Sciences' at the National Science Foundation" (MIT Press, 2020)

01 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This is part two of a two part interview. Mark Solovey’s ‘Social Science for What?’ is essential reading for anyone in either the history of sc...

The Science Wars: Post-Truth and the Nature of Science

29 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to the final day of our weeklong deep dive into the politics of education. Today, we’ve got another episode of Cited for you. If you haven’...

Erica Gies, "Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

29 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Trouble with water – increasingly frequent, extreme floods and droughts – is one of the first obvious signs of climate change. Meanwhile, urban sp...

Stuart Ellis-Gorman, "The Medieval Crossbow: A Weapon Fit to Kill a King" (Pen & Sword Military, 2022)

28 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The crossbow is an iconic weapon of the Middle Ages and, alongside the longbow, one of the most effective ranged weapons of the pre-gunpowder era. Unf...

The Battle of Buxton: Saving a Lighthouse in the Era of Climate Change

28 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

If you tuned in to our “ideas in strange places” themed programming last week, you would have heard an episode of Darts and Letters’ predecessor...

Lachlan Fleetwood, "Science on the Roof of the World: Empire and the Remaking of the Himalaya" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

28 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today, the idea that the Himalayas have the world’s tallest peaks—by a large margin—is entirely uncontroversial. Just about anyone can name Moun...

Nic Maclellan, "Grappling with the Bomb: Britain’s Pacific H-Bomb Tests" (ANU Press, 2017)

27 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Nic Maclellan's book Grappling with the Bomb: Britain’s Pacific H-Bomb Tests (ANU Press, 2017) is a history of Britain’s 1950s program to test t...

James Steinhoff, "Automation and Autonomy: Labour, Capital and Machines in the Artificial Intelligence Industry" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)

27 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Automation and Autonomy: Labour, Capital and Machines in the Artificial Intelligence Industry (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) argues that Marxist theory ...

Felix Schniz, "Genre and Video Game: Introducing an Impossible Taxonomy" (Springer, 2021)

26 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Felix Schniz's book Genre and Video Game: Introducing an Impossible Taxonomy (Genre und Videospiel: Einführung in eine unmögliche Taxonomie) expl...

Effective Altruism: What it is, What it Does, and How You Can Help

25 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

80,000 Hours provides research and support to help students and graduates switch into careers that effectively tackle the world’s most pressing pro...

Mark Solovey, "Social Science for What?: Battles over Public Funding for the 'Other Sciences' at the National Science Foundation" (MIT Press, 2020)

25 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This is part one of a two part interview. "The social sciences have prospered best in the federal government where they have been included under broad...

Jay Baruch, "Tornado of Life: A Doctor's Journey through Constraints and Creativity in the ER" (MIT Press, 2022)

22 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

To be an emergency room doctor is to be a professional listener to stories. Each patient presents a story; finding the heart of that story is the doct...

Jason Resnikoff, "Labor's End: How the Promise of Automation Degraded Work" (U Illinois Press, 2021)

21 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Labor's End: How the Promise of Automation Degraded Work (U Illinois Press, 2021) traces the discourse around automation from its origins in the fact...

Lisa Jean Moore, "Our Transgenic Future: Spider Goats, Genetic Modification, and the Will to Change Nature" (NYU Press, 2022)

20 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The process of manipulating the genetic material of one animal to include the DNA of another creates a new transgenic organism. Several animals, notab...

Rosetta S. Elkin, "Plant Life: The Entangled Politics of Afforestation" (U Minnesota Press, 2022)

20 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Plant Life: The Entangled Politics of Afforestation (U Minnesota Press, 2022), Rosetta S. Elkin explores the procedures of afforestation, the la...

The Future of War: A Discussion with Mark Galeotti

19 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Wars have always been fought in different ways, depending not only on the manpower available – elite professional armies to mass mobilization of who...

Keith W. Campbell, "The New Science of Narcissism: Understanding One of the Greatest Psychological Challenges of Our Time" (Sounds True, 2020)

15 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

“Narcissism” is truly one of the most important words of our time―ceaselessly discussed in the media, the subject of millions of online search q...

Jeannie N. Shinozuka, "Biotic Borders: Transpacific Plant and Insect Migration and the Rise of Anti-Asian Racism in America, 1890-1950" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

15 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the late nineteenth century, increasing traffic of transpacific plants, insects, and peoples raised fears of a "biological yellow peril" when nurse...

Rachael Pells, "Genomics: How Genome Sequencing Will Change Healthcare" (Random House, 2022)

15 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Genome sequencing is one of the most exciting scientific breakthroughs of the past thirty years. But what precisely does it involve and how is it deve...

Disintermediation

14 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Mark McGurl talks about disintermediation, a key term for internet commerce, and his new book about fiction in the age of digital self-publication. Th...

Veronica S. W. Mak, "Milk Craze: Body, Science, and Hope in China" (U Hawaii Press, 2021)

14 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Veronika Mak’s Milk Craze: Body, Science, and Hope in China (U of Hawaii Press, 2021) mixes historical and ethnographic research on milk to unde...

Nicole Erin Morse, "Selfie Aesthetics: Seeing Trans Feminist Futures in Self-Representational Art" (Duke UP, 2022)

13 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Selfie Aesthetics: Seeing Trans Feminist Futures in Self-Representational Art (Duke University Press, 2022) Nicole Erin Morse examines how trans...

Elena Conis, "How to Sell a Poison: The Rise, Fall, and Toxic Return of DDT" (Bold Type Books, 2022)

13 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The story of DDT as you’ve never heard it before: a fresh look at the much-maligned chemical compound as a cautionary tale of how powerful corporati...

Jayita Sarkar, "Ploughshares and Swords: India's Nuclear Program in the Global Cold War" (Cornell UP, 2022)

11 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Ploughshares and Swords: India’s Nuclear Program in the Global Cold War (Cornell University Press, 2022) by Jayita Sarkar challenges this received ...

Trevor Boffone, "TikTok Cultures in the United States" (Routledge, 2022)

11 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Trevor Boffone's book TikTok Cultures in the United States (Routledge, 2022) examines the role of TikTok in US popular culture, paying close attenti...

Jamie Susskind, "The Digital Republic: On Freedom and Democracy in the 21st Century" (Pegasus Books, 2022)

11 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From one of the leading intellectuals of the digital age, The Digital Republic: On Freedom and Democracy in the 21st Century (Pegasus Books, 2022) ...

“Vaccine: The Human Story”: A Chat with Historian and Podcaster Annie Kelly

08 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

“Vaccine: The Human Story” is a podcast and video series that tells the story of the global fight against smallpox, from its earliest history as a...

Andrew Witt, "Formulations: Architecture, Mathematics, Culture" (MIT Press, 2022)

08 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Formulations: Architecture, Mathematics, Culture (MIT Press, 2022), Andrew Witt examines the visual, methodological, and cultural intersections b...

Samuel Ulbricht, "Ethics of Computer Gaming: A Groundwork" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022)

08 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Samuel Ulbricht about his book Ethics of Computer Gaming: A Groundwork (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022). Despite the increasing number ...

Samuel Ulbricht, "Ethics of Computer Gaming: A Groundwork" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022)

08 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Samuel Ulbricht about his book Ethics of Computer Gaming: A Groundwork (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022). Despite the increasing number ...

Jody Rosen, "Two Wheels Good: The History and Mystery of the Bicycle" (Crown, 2022)

08 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The bicycle is a vestige of the Victorian era, seemingly at odds with our age of smartphones and ride-sharing apps and driverless cars. Yet we live on...

84* Cixin Liu Talk About Science Fiction (JP, Pu Wang)

07 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

John and Pu Wang, a Brandeis professor of Chinese literature, spoke with science-fiction genius Cixin Liu back in 2019. His most celebrated works i...

Ben Davis, "Art in the After-Culture: Capitalist Crisis and Cultural Strategy" (Haymarket Books, 2022)

06 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It is a scary and disorienting time for art, as it is a scary and disorienting time in general. Aesthetic experience is both overshadowed by the spect...

Frank Close, "Elusive: How Peter Higgs Solved the Mystery of Mass" (Basic Book, 2022)

06 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On July 4, 2012, the announcement came that one of the longest-running mysteries in physics had been solved: the Higgs boson, the missing piece in und...

Adrienne Buller, "The Value of a Whale: On the Illusions of Green Capitalism" (Manchester UP, 2022)

05 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this searing and insightful critique, Adrienne Buller examines the fatal biases that have shaped the response of our governing institutions to clim...

Daniel M. Davis, "The Secret Body: How the New Science of the Human Body Is Changing the Way We Live" (Princeton UP, 2022)

01 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Imagine knowing years in advance whether you are likely to get cancer or having a personalized understanding of your individual genes, organs, and cel...

Roberto J. González, "War Virtually: The Quest to Automate Conflict, Militarize Data, and Predict the Future" (U California Press, 2022)

01 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A critical look at how the US military is weaponizing technology and data for new kinds of warfare—and why we must resist. War Virtually: The Quest...

Teletherapy

30 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Hannah Zeavin talks about teletherapy, from Freud’s letters to suicide hotlines to therapy apps. If therapy is always mediated, teletherapy is any f...

James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti, "Atlas of the Invisible: Maps and Graphics That Will Change How You See the World" (W. W. Norton, 2021)

30 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Award-winning geographer-designer team James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti transform enormous datasets into rich maps and cutting-edge visualizations. In...

Victor Seow, "Carbon Technocracy: Energy Regimes in Modern East Asia" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

29 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Victor Seow’s Carbon Technocracy: Energy regimes in Modern East Asia (U Chicago Press, 2021) is an account of the modern “world that carbon mad...

Max Liboiron and Josh Lepawsky, "Discard Studies: Wasting, Systems, and Power" (MIT Press, 2022)

29 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

An argument that social, political, and economic systems maintain power by discarding certain people, places, and things. Discard studies is an emergi...

Susan H. Brandt, "Women Healers: Gender, Authority, and Medicine in Early Philadelphia" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022)

29 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In her eighteenth-century medical recipe manuscript, the Philadelphia healer Elizabeth Coates Paschall asserted her ingenuity and authority with the b...