New Books in Science, Technology, and Society
Episodes
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...
Gretchen McCulloch, "Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language" (Riverhead Books, 2020)
01 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Brynn Quick speaks with best-selling author and linguist Gretchen McCulloch about her 2019 New York Times bestselling book Because Internet: Under...
Robert Phillip Kolker and Marsha Gordon, "Film, Form, and Culture" (Routledge, 2024)
30 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This fifth edition of Film, Form, and Culture (Routledge, 2024) offers a lively introduction to both the formal and cultural aspects of film. With ...
Chris Haufe, "Do the Humanities Create Knowledge?" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
28 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There is in certain circles a widely held belief that the only proper kind of knowledge is scientific knowledge. This belief often runs parallel to th...
Edwin McRae, "Narrative Worldbuilding: A Player Centric Approach to Designing Story Rich Game Worlds" (Narrative, 2024)
28 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Game worlds differ from traditional fictional worlds. While literary and cinematic worlds are written to host character arcs and plots, game worlds ne...
Joanna Guldi, "The Dangerous Art of Text Mining: A Methodology for Digital History" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
28 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Dangerous Art of Text Mining: A Methodology for Digital History (Cambridge UP, 2022) celebrates the bold new research now possible because of tex...
American Innovation, American Vitality: A Conversation with Chris Buskirk
22 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How can we restore America's frontier spirit, foster innovation, and stave off decay? Chris Buskirk sits down to discuss his new book America and the...
Daniel P. Ott, "Harvesting History: McCormick's Reaper, Heritage Branding, and Historical Forgery" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)
20 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Cyrus McCormick invented the revolutionary mechanical reaper in 1831...right? At least, that's how the story has been told for decades. In Harvesting...
Rob Drew, "Unspooled: How the Cassette Made Music Shareable" (Duke UP, 2023)
20 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Well into the new millennium, the analog cassette tape continues to claw its way back from obsolescence. New cassette labels emerge from hipster encla...
Mona Simion, "Resistance to Evidence" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
19 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We have increasingly sophisticated ways of acquiring and communicating knowledge, but efforts to spread this knowledge often encounter resistance to e...
Raven Simone Maragh-Lloyd, "Black Networked Resistance: Strategic Rearticulations in the Digital Age" (U California Press, 2024)
19 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Black Networked Resistance: Strategic Rearticulations in the Digital Age (U California Press, 2024) explores the creative range of Black digital u...
Constantin Ardeleanu, "Steamboat Modernity: Travel, Transport, and Social Transformation on the Lower Danube, 1830–1860" (CEU Press, 2024)
18 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Through a skillful combination of economic and cultural history, this book describes the impact on Moldavia and Wallachia of steam navigation on the D...
Priya Satia, "Empire of Guns: The Violent Making of the Industrial Revolution" (Bloomsbury, 2019)
18 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, the industrial revolution transformed Britain from an agricultural and artisanal economy to one domina...
Catherine D'Ignazio, "Counting Feminicide: Data Feminism in Action" (MIT Press, 2024)
17 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What isn't counted doesn't count. And mainstream institutions systematically fail to account for feminicide, the gender-related killing of women and g...
Douglas L. Reside, "Fixing the Musical: How Technologies Shaped the Broadway Repertory" (Oxford UP, 2023)
15 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Thousands of shows have opened on Broadway. Why do we remember some and not others? The musical theatre repertory is not composed of titles popular in...
Matthew Berland and Antero Garcia, "The Left Hand of Data: Designing Education Data for Justice" (MIT Press, 2024)
15 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Educational analytics tend toward aggregation, asking what a “normative” learner does. In The Left Hand of Data: Designing Education Data for Ju...
Dancing Parkinson's and Queering Science with John Noel Viaña
14 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode Pat speaks with Dr John Noel Viaña. Dr John Noel Viaña’s work is focused on the social and ethical aspects of neuroscience and bio...
Per Högselius and Achim Klüppelberg, "The Soviet Nuclear Archipelago: A Historical Geography of Atomic-Powered Communism" (CEU Press, 2023)
12 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of the CEU Press Podcast, host Andrea Talabér (CEU Press/CEU Review of Books) sat down with Per Högselius and Achim Klüppelberg to ...
Gina Sipley, "Just Here for the Comments: Lurking as Digital Literacy Practice" (Bristol UP, 2024)
11 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We all sometimes ‘lurk’ in online spaces without posting or engaging, just reading the posts and comments. But neither reading nor lurking are eve...
"Did You Miss My Comment or What?": Understanding Toxicity in Open Source Discussions
11 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Listen to this interview of Courtney Miller, PhD student in Software Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. We talk about her paper "Did You Mis...
Carl Zimmer, "Life's Edge: The Search For What it Means to be Alive" (Dutton, 2022)
10 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Carl Zimmer investigates one of the biggest questions of all: What is life? The answer seems obvious until you try to seriously answer it. Is the appl...
Tiziano Bonini and Emiliano Trere, "Algorithms of Resistance: The Everyday Fight against Platform Power" (MIT Press, 2024)
10 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What are the tactics needed for a world of platforms and algorithms? In Algorithms of Resistance: The Everyday Fight against Platform Power (MIT Pre...
The Scientific Attitude
07 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Listen to this interview of Lee McIntyre, Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science (Boston University) and Senior Advisor ...
Matteo Pangallo and Emily B. Todd, "Teaching the History of the Book" (U Massachusetts Press, 2023)
07 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Edited by Matteo Pangallo and Emily Todd, Teaching the History of the Book (University of Massachusetts Press 2023) is the first collection of its k...
MC Forelle on Cars, Chipification, and Repair
06 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with MC Forelle, Assistant Professor of Engineering & Society at the School of Engineering and Applied Scien...
Dead Air
06 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On our first episode of Phantom Power, we ponder those moments when the air remains unmoved. Whether fostered by design or meteorological conditions...
Tanisha M. Fazal, "Military Medicine and the Hidden Costs of War" (Oxford UP, 2024)
05 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Decisions to go to war are often framed in cost-benefit terms, and typically such assessments do not factor in longer term costs. However, recent dram...
John Powers, "Technology and the Making of Experimental Film Culture" (Oxford UP, 2023)
04 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Bolex camera, 16mm reversal film stocks, commercial film laboratories, and low-budget optical printers were the small-gauge media technologies tha...
John J. Berger, "Solving the Climate Crisis: Frontline Reports from the Race to Save the Earth" (Seven Stories Press, 2023)
03 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Solving the Climate Crisis: Frontline Reports from the Race to Save the Earth (Seven Stories Press, 2023) is a hopeful and critical resource that mak...
The Contagion of Covid Policy: Dr. Jay Bhattacharya on Freedom of Speech
03 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
After a storied career as a health policy expert, Stanford Medicine's Dr. Jay Bhattacharya's work became a political focal point during the COVID-19 p...
Leigh Gilmore, "The #MeToo Effect: What Happens When We Believe Women" (Columbia UP, 2023)
27 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The #MeToo movement inspired millions to testify to the widespread experience of sexual violence. More broadly, it shifted the deeply ingrained respon...
John L. Sullivan, "Podcasting in a Platform Age: From an Amateur to a Professional Medium" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
27 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Podcasting in a Platform Age: From an Amateur to a Professional Medium (Bloomsbury, 2024) explores the transition underway in podcasting by consideri...
Natalia Grincheva and Elizabeth Stainforth, "Geopolitics of Digital Heritage" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
27 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How are digital platforms transforming heritage? In Geopolitics of Digital Heritage (Cambridge UP, 2023), Dr Natalia Grincheva, Program Leader of...
Anu Bradford, "Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology" (Oxford UP, 2023)
24 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The global battle among the three dominant digital powers―the United States, China, and the European Union―is intensifying. All three regimes are ...
Social media’s business model is changing democracy, and not for the better
24 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Democracies in Europe and the world over are grappling with the challenges posed by social media. In this episode, Charlotte Galpin and Verena Brändl...
Asif Siddiqi on Rockets, Prisons, Pop Songs, and So Much More
22 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Asif Siddiqi, Professor of History at Fordham University, about the arc of his career and his wide-rangi...
Héctor Beltrán, "Code Work: Hacking Across the US/México Techno-Borderlands" (Princeton UP, 2023)
21 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Code Work: Hacking Across the US/México Techno-Borderlands (Princeton UP, 2023), Héctor Beltrán examines Mexican and Latinx coders’ personal...
Coreen McGuire, "Measuring Difference, Numbering Normal: Setting the Standards for Disability in the Interwar Period" (Manchester UP, 2020)
20 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Measurements, and their manipulation, have been underestimated as crucial historical forces motivating and guiding the way we think about disability. ...
Heather Parry, "Electric Dreams: Sex Robots and Failed Promises of Capitalism" (404 Ink, 2024)
20 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the future, we’ll all be having sex with robots… won’t we? Roboticists say they’re a distracting science fiction, yet endless books, films ...
Stephen Morillo, "War and Conflict in the Middle Ages" (Polity Press, 2022)
20 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In War and Conflict in the Middle Ages (Polity, 2022), Dr. Stephen Morillo offers the first global history of armed conflict between 540 and 1500 or...
Kevin Lambert, "Symbols and Things: Material Mathematics in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2021)
15 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The stereotype of the solitary mathematician is widespread, but practicing users and producers of mathematics know well that our work depends heavily ...
Annaliese Jacobs Claydon, "Arctic Circles and Imperial Knowledge: The Franklin Family, Indigenous Intermediaries, and the Politics of Truth" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
15 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1845 an expedition led by Sir John Franklin vanished in the Canadian Arctic. The enduring obsession with the Franklin mystery, and in particular In...
Miriam Piilonen, "Theorizing Music Evolution: Darwin, Spencer, and the Limits of the Human" (Oxford UP, 2024)
15 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What did historical evolutionists such as Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer have to say about music? What role did music play in their evolutionary t...
Rasmus Winther, "Our Genes: A Philosophical Perspective on Human Evolutionary Genomics" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
14 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Situated at the intersection of natural science and philosophy, Our Genes: A Philosophical Perspective on Human Evolutionary Genomics (Cambridge Un...
Sharrona Pearl, "Mask" (Bloombury, 2024)
14 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From the theatre mask and masquerade to the masked criminal and the rise of facial recognition software, masks have long performed as an instrument fo...
Darren Wershler et al,, "The Lab Book: Situated Practices in Media Studies" (U Minnesota Press, 2022)
14 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A hybrid lab functions in the space between institutions and infrastructure, creating new opportunities for understanding their interconnection. Howev...
Stewart Lawrence Sinclair, "Space Rover" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
13 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1971, the first lunar rover arrived on the moon. The design became an icon of American ingenuity and the adventurous spirit and vision many equated...
Grazia Ingravalle, "Archival Film Curatorship: Early and Silent Cinema from Analog to Digital" (Amsterdam UP, 2024)
12 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Archival Film Curatorship: Early and Silent Cinema from Analog to Digital (Amsterdam UP, 2023) is the first book-length study that investigates film ...
David Petraeus and Andrew Roberts, "Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare From 1945 to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine" (Harper, 2023)
12 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this deep and incisive study, General David Petraeus, who commanded the US-led coalitions in both Iraq, during the Surge, and Afghanistan and forme...
100 Years of Radio in South Africa: Then and Now
11 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s book is: 100 Years of Radio in South Africa, Volume 1: South African Radio Stations and Broadcasters Then & Now (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)...
Bishnupriya Ghosh, "The Virus Touch: Theorizing Epidemic Media" (Duke UP, 2023)
10 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In The Virus Touch: Theorizing Epidemic Media (Duke UP. 2023), Bishnupriya Ghosh argues that media are central to understanding emergent relations ...
Sean Vanatta on Credit Cards
08 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with historian and standup comedian, Sean Vanatta, lecturer in economic and social history at the University ...
Tina Sikka, "Health Apps, Genetic Diets and Superfoods: When Biopolitics Meets Neoliberalism" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
05 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Health Apps, Genetic Diets and Superfoods: When Biopolitics Meets Neoliberalism (Bloomsbury, 2023) critically examines contemporary health and wellne...
Dominic Boyer, "No More Fossils" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)
03 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Our hosts, Devin Griffiths and Deanna Kreisel, sat down with Dominic Boyer to talk about his new book, No More Fossils, which appeared just last yea...
Marc Masters, "High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape" (UNC Press, 2023)
03 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The cassette tape was revolutionary. Cheap, portable, and reusable, this small plastic rectangle changed music history. Make your own tapes! Trade the...
Guru Madhavan on Wicked Problems and Engineering a Better World
02 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Guru Madhavan, Norman R. Augustine Senior Scholar and Senior Director of Programs at the National Academ...
Max Bennett, "A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, Ai, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains" (Mariner Books, 2023)
01 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, Ai, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains (Mariner Books, 2023) tells two fascinating stories. ...
Claudia de Rham, "The Beauty of Falling: A Life in Pursuit of Gravity" (Princeton UP, 2024)
01 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Claudia de Rham has been playing with gravity her entire life. As a diver, experimenting with her body's buoyancy in the Indian Ocean. As a pilot, soa...
Building the Future Buddha: A Discussion with Jundho Cohen
31 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jundo Cohen is a Zen Buddhist teacher and founder of Treeleaf Zendo, a digital Zen community with members in over 50 countries. He writes on the inter...
Matthew H. Hersch, "Dark Star: A New History of the Space Shuttle" (MIT Press, 2023)
30 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Dark Star: A New History of the Space Shuttle (MIT Press, 2023), Dr. Matthew Hersch challenges the existing narrative of the most significant hum...
Ya-Wen Lei, "The Gilded Cage: Technology, Development, and State Capitalism in China" (Princeton UP, 2023)
30 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Since the mid-2000s, the Chinese state has increasingly shifted away from labor-intensive, export-oriented manufacturing to a process of socioeconomic...
Robert Willim, "Mundania: How and Where Technologies Are Made Ordinary" (Bristol UP, 2024)
30 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Robert Willim's new book Mundania: How and Where Technologies Are Made Ordinary (Bristol University Press, 2024), takes the reader on a journey thr...
Emma Frances Bloomfield, "Science V. Story: Narrative Strategies for Science Communicators" (U California Press, 2024)
30 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Listen to this interview of Emma Frances Bloomfield, Associate Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. We talk abou...
Thomas S. Mullaney, "The Chinese Computer: A Global History of the Information Age" (MIT Press, 2024)
29 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The fascinating, untold story of how the Chinese language overcame unparalleled challenges and revolutionized the world of computing. A standard QWERT...
Ignacio Cofone, "The Privacy Fallacy: Harm and Power in the Information Economy" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
28 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Our privacy is besieged by tech companies. Companies can do this because our laws are built on outdated ideas that trap lawmakers, regulators, and cou...
Anita R. Gohdes, "Repression in the Digital Age: Surveillance, Censorship, and the Dynamics of State Violence" (Oxford UP, 2023)
26 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Global adoption of the Internet has exploded, yet we are only beginning to understand the Internet's profound political consequences. Authoritarian st...
How Can We Reach International Consensus on AI Regulation?
25 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of International Horizons, RBI director John Torpey interviews Gabriele Mazzini, a lawyer and officer of the European Commission and ...
John Warner on Teaching Writing in the Age of Generative AI
25 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel talks with writer and editor John Warner, who taught writing at the college level for more than twenty years. Warner ...