New Books in Science, Technology, and Society

Trevor Boffone, "TikTok Broadway: Musical Theatre Fandom in the Digital Age" (Oxford UP, 2024)

08 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Are you a musical theatre fan who loves TikTok? Or are you curious about how this social media app has changed musical theatre fandom - and even the c...

Jess Whatcott, "Menace to the Future: A Disability and Queer History of Carceral Eugenics" (Duke UP, 2024)

07 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Menace to the Future: A Disability and Queer History of Carceral Eugenics (Duke UP, 2024), Jess Whatcott traces the link between US disability in...

James M. Scott, "Black Snow: Curtis Lemay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb" (Norton, 2024)

06 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In our interview about Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb (W. W. Norton & Company, 2022), James M. ...

Jordan Magnuson, "Game Poems: Videogame Design as Lyric Practice" (Amherst College Press, 2023)

04 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Scholars, critics, and creators describe certain videogames as being “poetic,” yet what that means or why it matters is rarely discussed. In Game...

S4E4 In Defense of Bad Science and the Philosophy of Being

04 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What role does science play in shaping our laws? How do we distinguish between good science and bad science? Where does science hit its limits due to ...

John P. Davis, "Russia in the Time of Cholera" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018)

04 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The idea of “backwardness” often plagues historical writing on Russia. In Russia in the Time of Cholera: Disease under Romanovs and Soviets (Bloom...

Kostas Kampourakis, "Darwin Mythology: Debunking Myths, Correcting Falsehoods" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

03 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Many historical figures have their lives and works shrouded in myth, both in life and long after their deaths. Charles Darwin (1809–82) is no excep...

Sarah Malanowski and Nicholas R. Baima, "Why It's Ok to Be a Gamer" (Routledge, 2024)

03 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

If you enjoy video games as a pastime, you are certainly not alone—billions of people worldwide now play video games. However, you may still find yo...

Andy Clarno et al., "Imperial Policing: Weaponized Data in Carceral Chicago" (U Minnesota Press, 2024)

03 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Chicago is a city with extreme concentrations of racialized poverty and inequity, one that relies on an extensive network of repressive agencies to po...

Violet Moller, "The Map of Knowledge: A Thousand-Year History of How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found" (Doubleday, 2019)

02 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Violet Moller has written a narrative history of the transmission of books from the ancient world to the modern. In The Map of Knowledge: A Thousand-Y...

Elizabeth A. Williams, "Appetite and Its Discontents: Science, Medicine, and the Urge to Eat, 1750-1950" (U Chicago Press, 2020)

02 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Why do we eat? Is it instinct? Despite the necessity of food, anxieties about what and how to eat are widespread and persistent. In Appetite and Its D...

Brian Clegg, "Ten Patterns That Explain the Universe" (MIT Press, 2021)

02 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Our universe might appear chaotic, but deep down it's simply a myriad of rules working independently to create patterns of action, force, and conseque...

Henry H. Work, "Wood, Whiskey and Wine: A History of Barrels"(Reaktion Books, 2024)

01 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Barrels – we rarely acknowledge their importance, but without them we would be missing out on some of the world’s finest wines and spirits. For ov...

Susan Greenhalgh, "Soda Science: Making the World Safe for Coca-Cola" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

31 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Soda Science: Making the World Safe for Coca-Cola (U Chicago Press, 2024) takes readers deep inside the secret world of corporate science, where powe...

Mel Stanfill, "Fandom Is Ugly: Networked Harassment in Participatory Culture" (NYU Press, 2024)

31 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In their latest book, Fandom is Ugly: Networked Harassment in Participatory Culture (NYU Press, 2024), Mel Stafill highlights the importance of con...

John V. Pavlik, "Journalism and the Metaverse" (Anthem Press, 2024)

30 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Journalism has been in a state of disruption since the development of the Internet. The Metaverse, or what some describe as the future of the Internet...

Tarryn Li-Min Chun, "Revolutionary Stagecraft: Theater, Technology, and Politics in Modern China" (U Michigan Press, 2024), "Revolutionary Stagecraft: Theater, Technology, and Politics in Modern China" (U Michigan Press, 2024)

30 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Revolutionary Stagecraft: Theater, Technology, and Politics in Modern China (University of Michigan Press, 2024) offers a fascinating approach to m...

The Human Advantage: A Conversation with Jay Richards

28 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, we explore the insights of Jay Richards, author of The Human Advantage: The Future of American Work in an Age of Smart Machines (Fo...

Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria, "Mumbai on Two Wheels: Cycling, Urban Space, and Sustainable Mobility" (U Washington Press, 2024)

27 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Mumbai is not commonly seen as a bike-friendly city because of its dense traffic and the absence of bicycle lanes. Yet the city supports rapidly expan...

Joanna Wuest, "Born This Way: Science, Citizenship, and Inequality in the American LGBTQ+ Movement" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

27 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Scholars often narrate the legal cases confirming LGBTQ+ rights as a huge success story. While it took 100 years to confirm the rights of Black Americ...

Yerkebulan Sairambay, "New Media and Political Participation in Russia and Kazakhstan" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2023)

26 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Yerkebulan Sairambay’s New Media and Political Participation in Russia and Kazakhstan (Rowman and Littlefield, 2023) confronts the sociologic...

Cyrus Mody on the Importance of Square (as in NOT COOL) Scientists and Engineers

26 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks to Cyrus Mody, Professor in the History of Science, Technology, and Innovation and Director of the STS Progra...

Phil Haun, "Tactical Air Power and the Vietnam War: Explaining Effectiveness in Modern Air Warfare" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

25 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Tactical Air Power and the Vietnam War: Explaining Effectiveness in Modern Air Warfare (Cambridge UP, 2023) introduces a much-needed theory of tactic...

Nick Chater, "The Mind Is Flat: The Remarkable Shallowness of the Improvising Brain" (Yale UP, 2019)

24 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Psychologists and neuroscientists struggle with how best to interpret human motivation and decision making. The assumption is that below a mental “s...

Uluğ Kuzuoğlu, "Codes of Modernity: Chinese Scripts in the Global Information Age" (Columbia UP, 2023)

23 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the late nineteenth century, Chinese reformers and revolutionaries believed that there was something fundamentally wrong with the Chinese writing s...

Nick Haddad, "The Last Butterflies: A Scientist's Quest to Save a Rare and Vanishing Creature" (Princeton UP, 2019)

23 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Butterflies have long captivated the imagination of humans, from naturalists to children to poets. Indeed it would be hard to imagine a world without ...

Michele Santamaria and Nicole Pfannenstiel, "Information Literacy and Social Media: Empowered Student Engagement with the Acrl Framework" (ACRL, 2024)

20 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Teaching our students how to become flexible and accurate evaluators of information requires teaching them adaptable processes and not static heuristi...

12 Angry Alaskans: Re-Examining the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Case

16 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This is part #2 of a the (ir)Rational Alaskans, a Cited Podcast series that re-examines the legacy of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Last episode, th...

Noah Heringman, "Deep Time: A Literary History" (Princeton UP, 2023)

14 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Deep Time: A Literary History (Princeton UP, 2023), Noah Heringman, Curators’ Professor of English at the University of Missouri, presents a “...

Heather Murray, "Asylum Ways of Seeing: Psychiatric Patients, American Thought and Culture" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022)

13 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Asylum Ways of Seeing: Psychiatric Patients, American Thought and Culture (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021) by Dr. Heather Murray is a cultura...

Craig Gent, "Cyberboss: The Rise of Algorithmic Management and the New Struggle for Control at Work" (Verso, 2024)

13 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Across the world, algorithms are changing the nature of work. Nowhere is this clearer than in the logistics and distribution sectors, where workers ar...

Aimee Louise Middlemiss, "Invisible Labours: The Reproductive Politics of Second Trimester Pregnancy Loss in England" (Berghahn Books, 2024)

12 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Tracing women’s experiences of miscarriage and termination for foetal anomaly in the second trimester, before legal viability, shows how such events...

Matthew Evangelista, "Allied Air Attacks and Civilian Harm in Italy, 1940–1945: Bombing among Friends" (Routledge, 2024)

11 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Tens of thousands of Italian civilians perished in the Allied bombing raids of World War II. More of them died after the Armistice of September 1943...

Daniel Kahneman’s Forgotten Legacy: Investigating Exxon-Funded Psychological Research

09 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After the unprecedented Exxon Valdez oil spill, a jury of ordinary Alaskans decided that Exxon had to be punished. However, Exxon fought back against ...

Neoliberalism and the University, Part 2

09 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This is the Global Media & Communication podcast series. This podcast is a multimodal project powered by the Center for Advanced Research in Global Co...

Alice Mah, "Petrochemical Planet: Multiscalar Battles of Industrial Transformation" (Duke UP, 2023)

08 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Is a green future possible? In Petrochemical Planet: Multiscalar Battles of Industrial Transformation (Duke UP, 2023), Alice Mah, a Professor in U...

Andrew Denning, "Automotive Empire: How Cars and Roads Fueled European Colonialism in Africa" (Cornell UP, 2024)

07 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Automotive Empire: How Cars and Roads Fueled European Colonialism in Africa (Cornell University Press, 2024), Dr. Andrew Denning uncovers how roa...

The GiveWell Method

07 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, Caleb Zakarin and Uri Bram dive into the world of effective charitable giving through the lens of GiveWell, an organization known for...

Edward Shanks, "The People of the Ruins" (MIT Press, 2024)

06 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In The People of the Ruins (originally published in 1920), Edward Shanks imagines England in the not-so-distant future as a neo mediaeval society wh...

Thomas A. Kerns and Kathleen Dean Moore, "Bearing Witness: The Human Rights Case Against Fracking and Climate Change" (Oregon State UP, 2021)

06 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Bringing together philosophy, jurisprudence, and a deep concern for the environment, Bearing Witness: The Human Rights Case Against Fracking and Clim...

Mark Walker, "Hitler's Atomic Bomb: History, Legend, and the Twin Legacies of Auschwitz and Hiroshima" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

05 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Who were the German scientists who worked on atomic bombs during World War II for Hitler's regime? How did they justify themselves afterwards?  Exami...

Jeremy Black, "Histories of War" (Pen & Sword Military, 2024)

04 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A global account of histories of war, from Antiquity to the present day, Histories of War (Pen & Sword Military, 2024) shows how the varied modes of...

Mitchel P. Roth and Mahmut Cengiz, "Murder by Mail: A Global History of the Letter Bomb" (Reaktion Books, 2024)

02 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Murder by Mail: A Global History of the Letter Bomb (Reaktion, 2024) by Dr. Mitchel P. Roth and Dr. Mahmut Cengiz unfolds the gripping history of wea...

Edward Kaplan, "The End of Victory: Prevailing in the Thermonuclear Age" (Cornell UP, 2022)

02 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Waging and winning a nuclear war have been called “thinking about the unthinkable” but that’s exactly what Edward Kaplan and I discussed in our ...

Monica Berger, "Predatory Publishing and Global Scholarly Communications" (ACRL, 2024)

31 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Predatory publishing is a complex problem that harms a broad array of stakeholders and concerns across the scholarly communications system. It shines ...

Kate McDonald on Asian Mobility History as Labor History

29 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks to Kate McDonald, Associate Professor of History at University of California, Santa Barbara, about her fascin...

Tim Sweijs and Jeffrey H. Michaels, "Beyond Ukraine: Debating the Future of War" (Oxford UP, 2024)

26 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

War in the 21st century will remain a chameleon that takes on different forms and guises. Beyond Ukraine: Debating the Future of War (Oxford Univers...

Bishnupriya Ghosh, "The Virus Touch: Theorizing Epidemic Media" (Duke UP, 2023)

26 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to the Global Media & Communication podcast series. This podcast is a multimodal project powered by the Center for Advanced Research in Global...

Kirsten Moore-Sheeley, "Nothing But Nets: A Biography of Global Health Science and Its Objects" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023)

24 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Distributed to millions of people annually across Africa and the global south, insecticide-treated bed nets have become a cornerstone of malaria contr...

Quantifying the American Mind: George Gallup, and the Promise of Political Polling

24 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Early pollsters thought they had the psychological tools to quantify American mind, thereby enabling a truly democratic polity that would be governed ...

Anton Howes, "Arts and Minds: How the Royal Society of Arts Changed a Nation" (Princeton UP, 2020)

22 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past 300 years, The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce has tried to improve British life in every way ima...

David Badre, "On Task: How Our Brain Gets Things Done" (Princeton UP, 2020)

21 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On Task: How Our Brain Gets Things Done (Princeton UP, 2020) is a look at the extraordinary ways the brain turns thoughts into actions—and how thi...

Sören Schoppmeier, "Playing American: Open-World Videogames and the Reproduction of American Culture" (De Gruyter, 2023)

19 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Videogames have always depicted representations of American culture, but how exactly they feed back into this culture is less obvious. Advocating an a...

Özge Çelikaslan, "Archiving the Commons: Looking Through the Lens of bak.ma" (DPR Barcelona, 2024)

19 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

“Stories of archives are always stories of phantoms, of the death or disappearance or erasure of something, the preservation of what remains, and it...

Thomas Zeller, "Consuming Landscapes: What We See When We Drive and Why It Matters" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2022)

17 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What we see through our windshields reflects ideas about our national identity, consumerism, and infrastructure. For better or worse, windshields have...

Jill A. Fisher, "Adverse Events: Race, Inequality, and the Testing of New Pharmaceuticals" (NYU Press, 2020)

15 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Imagine that you volunteer for the clinical trial of an experimental drug. The only direct benefit of participating is that you will receive up to $5,...

Paula Bialski on Middletech, Software Work, and the Culture of Good Enough

15 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel talks with Paula Bialski, an Associate Professor for Digital Sociology at the University of St. Gallen in St. Gallen,...

Carl Öhman, "The Afterlife of Data: What Happens to Your Information When You Die and Why You Should Care" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

14 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A short, thought-provoking book about what happens to our online identities after we die. These days, so much of our lives takes place online—but wh...

AI and Music: The Future is Here (featuring "There I Ruined It")

13 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It’s the UConn Popcast, and recently UConn’s Center for the Study of Popular Music hosted a panel discussion on Artificial Intelligence and the ...

Tea Krulos, "American Madness: The Story of the Phantom Patriot and How Conspiracy Theories Hijacked American Consciousness" (Feral House, 2020)

12 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The mainstream news media struggles to understand the power of social media. In contrast, conspiracy advocates, malicious political movements, and eve...

Monika Krause, "Model Cases: On Canonical Research Objects and Sites" (U Chicago Press, 2021)

10 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Model Cases: On Canonical Research Objects and Sites (University of Chicago Press, 2021), Dr. Monika Krause asks about the concrete material rese...

Aram Sinnreich and Jesse Gilbert, "The Secret Life of Data: Navigating Hype and Uncertainty in the Age of Algorithmic Surveillance" (MIT Press, 2024)

10 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What is data, and why does it matter for us to care about the data traces we leave behind? What are the implications for our lives of how this data is...

Shannon Vallor, "The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking" (Oxford UP, 2024)

10 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

There's a lot of talk these days about the existential risk that artificial intelligence poses to humanity -- that somehow the AIs will rise up and de...

David Alff, "The Northeast Corridor: The Trains, the People, the History, the Region" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

09 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Traversed by thousands of trains and millions of riders, the Northeast Corridor might be America’s most famous railway, but its influence goes far b...

Donna Drucker, "Contraception: A Concise History" (The MIT Press, 2020)

08 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The beginning of the modern contraceptive era began in 1882, when Dr. Aletta Jacobs opened the first birth control clinic in Amsterdam. The founding o...

David J. Hand, "Dark Data: Why What You Don't Know Matters" (Princeton UP, 2020)

08 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

There is no shortage of books on the growing impact of data collection and analysis on our societies, our cultures, and our everyday lives. David Hand...

Sandra Hirsh, "Library 2035: Imagining the Next Generation of Libraries" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024)

07 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Building on the success and impact of Library 2020: Today’s Leading Visionaries Describe Tomorrow’s Library by Joseph Janes, Library 2035: Imag...

Jeremy Black, "A World History of Rail: From the Steam Regime to Today" (Amberley Publishing, 2023)

06 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

There were 20,000 miles of railways in 1865 and about a million by 2020. Scale has always been a key theme in railway history. In the First World War,...

Pierre Sokolsky, "Clock in the Sun: How We Came to Understand Our Nearest Star" (Columbia UP, 2024)

05 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On the surface of the Sun, spots appear and fade in a predictable cycle, like a great clock in the sky. In medieval Russia, China, and Korea, monks an...

Tara Ward, "Appreciation Post: Towards an Art History of Instagram" (U California Press, 2024)

05 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What does an art history of Instagram look like? Appreciation Post: Towards an Art History of Instagram (University of California Press, 2024) by Dr...

Firuzeh Shokooh Valle, "In Defense of Solidarity and Pleasure: Feminist Technopolitics from the Global South" (Stanford UP, 2023)

04 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Including women in the global South as users, producers, consumers, designers, and developers of technology has become a mantra against inequality, pr...

Eve Herold, "Robots and the People Who Love Them: Holding on to Our Humanity in an Age of Social Robots" (St. Martin's Press, 2024)

04 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The latest developments in robotics and artificial intelligence and a preview of the coming decades, based on research and interviews with the world's...

Jason Hannan, "Trolling Ourselves to Death: Democracy in the Age of Social Media" (Oxford UP, 2023)

02 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We commonly think of trolls as anonymous online pranksters who hide behind clever avatars and screen names. In Trolling Ourselves to Death: Democracy...

Pandemics Perspectives 15: The Dynamic Nature of Science

02 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this Pandemic Perspectives Podcast, Ideas Roadshow founder and host Howard Burton talks to Michael Gordin, Rosengarten Professor of Modern and Cont...

Travis B. Williams et al., "The Dead Sea Scrolls in Ancient Media Culture" (Brill, 2023)

01 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Media studies is an emerging discipline that is quickly making an impact within the wider field of biblical scholarship. The Dead Sea Scrolls in Anci...

Peter Murray Jones, "The Medicine of the Friars in Medieval England" (Boydell & Brewer, 2024)

30 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Friars are often overlooked in the picture of health care in late mediaeval England. Physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, barbers, midwives - these are...

Joshua Schuster, "What Is Extinction?: A Natural and Cultural History of Last Animals" (Fordham UP, 2023)

28 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Life on Earth is facing a mass extinction event of our own making. Human activity is changing the biology and the meaning of extinction. What Is Exti...

Barbara Klinger, "Immortal Films: 'Casablanca' and the Afterlife of a Hollywood Classic" (U California Press, 2022)

27 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Casablanca is one of the most celebrated Hollywood films of all time, its iconic romance enshrined in collective memory across generations. Drawing f...

Peter Hill, "Prophet of Reason: Science, Religion and the Origins of the Modern Middle East" (Oneworld Academic, 2024)

26 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Peter Hill about his new book Prophet of Reason: Science, Religion and the Origins of the Modern Middle East (Oneworld Academic, ...

Ann Johnson and Johannes Lenhard, "Cultures of Prediction: How Engineering and Science Evolve with Mathematical Tools" (MIT Press, 2024)

24 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A probing examination of the dynamic history of predictive methods and values in science and engineering that helps us better understand today's cultu...

Living with Digital Surveillance in China

24 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How do Chinese citizens make sense of digital surveillance and live with it? What narratives do they come up with to deal with the daily and all-encom...

Trish Kahle on the Labor History of Energy Systems

24 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks to Trish Kahle, Assistant Professor of History at Georgetown University-Qatar, about Kahle's new project, "Po...

Siobhan Angus, "Camera Geologica: An Elemental History of Photography" (Duke UP, 2024)

21 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Camera Geologica: An Elemental History of Photography (Duke UP, 2024) Siobhan Angus tells the history of photography through the minerals upon wh...

M. Girard Dorsey, "Holding Their Breath: How the Allies Confronted the Threat of Chemical Warfare in World War II" (Cornell UP, 2023)

21 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Holding Their Breath: How the Allies Confronted the Threat of Chemical Warfare in World War II (Cornell UP, 2023), M. Girard Dorsey uncovers jus...

Paulina Rowinska, "Mapmatics: How We Navigate the World Through Numbers" (Pan Macmillan, 2024)

19 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How does a delivery driver distribute hundreds of packages in a single working day? Why does remote Alaska have such a large airport? Where should we ...

danah boyd on Digital Technology and Everyday Life

17 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel talks with danah boyd, Partner Researcher at Microsoft Research, founder of the Data & Society Research Institute, an...

Lisa M. P. Munoz, "Women in Science Now: Stories and Strategies for Achieving Equity" (Columbia UP, 2023)

16 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Women working in the sciences face obstacles at virtually every step along their career paths. From subtle slights to blatant biases, deep systemic pr...

Carlos M. N. Eire, "They Flew: A History of the Impossible" (Yale UP, 2023)

16 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the early modern era, seemingly impossible stories of levitation, bilocation, and witchcraft were common and believable. The important question o...

Allison J. Pugh, "The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World" (Princeton UP, 2024)

15 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence and labor-saving technologies like self-checkouts and automated factories, the future of work ha...

Tessa Hill and Eric Simons, "At Every Depth: Our Growing Knowledge of the Changing Oceans" (Columbia UP, 2024)

14 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

At Every Depth: Our Growing Knowledge of the Changing Oceans (Columbia UP, 2024) takes readers on a journey from California tidepools to Antarctic p...

More Than A Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech

13 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s book is: More Than A Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech (MIT Press, 2024), by Meredith Broussard. When technology ...

Carl Elliott, "The Occasional Human Sacrifice: Medical Experimentation and the Price of Saying No" (Norton, 2024)

12 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Occasional Human Sacrifice: Medical Experimentation and the Price of Saying No (Norton, 2024) is an intellectual inquiry into the moral struggle ...

Julia Wojnowska-Radzińska, "Implications of Pre-Emptive Data Surveillance for Fundamental Rights in the European Union" (Brill Nijhoff, 2023)

12 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Implications of Pre-Emptive Data Surveillance for Fundamental Rights in the European Union (Brill Nijhoff, 2023) Julia Wojnowska-Radzińska offer...

Duana Fullwiley, "Tabula Raza: Mapping Race and Human Diversity in American Genome Science" (U California Press, 2024)

12 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Tabula Raza: Mapping Race and Human Diversity in American Genome Science (University of California Press, 2024), Duana Fullwiley has penned an ...

John Blaxland and Clare Birgin, "Revealing Secrets: An Unofficial History of Australian Signals Intelligence and the Advent of Cyber" (UNSW Press, 2023)

11 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Why does Australia have a national signals intelligence agency? What does it do and why is it controversial? And how significant are its ties with key...

Cameron J. Buckner, "From Deep Learning to Rational Machines" (Oxford UP, 2023)

10 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Artificial intelligence started with programmed computers, where programmers would manually program human expert knowledge into the systems. In sharp ...

Pandemic Perspectives 13: The Need for Genuine Communication

09 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this Pandemic Perspectives Podcast, Ideas Roadshow founder and host Howard Burton talks to Elizabeth Anderson, Max Shaye Professor of Public Philos...

Sharrona Pearl, "Do I Know You?: From Face Blindness to Super Recognition" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023)

08 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Do I Know You? From Faceblindness to Super Recognition (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023), Dr. Sharrona Pearl explores the fascinating catego...

Aaron Eddens, "Seeding Empire: American Philanthrocapital and the Roots of the Green Revolution in Africa" (U California Press, 2024)

06 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Seeding Empire: American Philanthrocapital and the Roots of the Green Revolution in Africa (University of California Press, 2024), Dr. Aaron Edde...

AI and the Humanities: Nina Beguš DIscusses "Artificial Humanities"

03 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this debut conversation, we speak to Dr. Nina Beguš, a researcher at UC Berkeley and the founder of InterpretAI who holds a PhD in Comparative Li...