New Books in Science, Technology, and Society

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 ...

George S. Takach, "Cold War 2.0: Artificial Intelligence in the New Battle between China, Russia, and America" (Pegasus Book, 2024)

24 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A vivid, thoughtful examination of how technological innovation—especially AI—is shaping the tensions between democracy and autocracy during the n...

Tonia Sutherland, "Resurrecting the Black Body: Race and the Digital Afterlife" (U California Press, 2023)

22 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The first critical examination of death and remembrance in the digital age—and an invitation to imagine Black digital sovereignty in life and death....

Beth Linker, "Slouch: Posture Panic in Modern America" (Princeton UP, 2024)

21 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1995, a scandal erupted when the New York Times revealed that the Smithsonian possessed a century's worth of nude "posture" photos of college stu...

Jörg Matthias Determann and Shoaib Ahmed Malik, "Islamic Theology and Extraterrestrial Life: New Frontiers in Science and Religion" (I. B. Tauris, 2024)

19 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Over the last thirty years, humanity has discovered thousands of planets outside of our solar system. The discovery of extraterrestrial life could be ...

Brandon R. Brown, "Sharing Our Science: How to Write and Speak STEM" (MIT Press, 2023)

18 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Listen to this interview of Brandon Brown, Professor of Physics at the University of San Francisco. We talk about factoring in both message-sender an...

Lisa Messeri, "In the Land of the Unreal: Virtual and Other Realities in Los Angeles" (Duke UP, 2024)

16 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the mid-2010s, a passionate community of Los Angeles-based storytellers, media artists, and tech innovators formed around virtual reality (VR), bel...

Once More--What Does It Even Mean for a Machine to be Generative?

16 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Listen to Episode No.9 of All We Mean, a Special Focus of this podcast. All We Mean is an ongoing discussion and debate about how we mean and why. ...

Ruth A. Morgan, "Climate Change and International History: Climate Diplomacy in the Global North and South Since 1950" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

16 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Exploring how climate change has configured the international arena since the 1950s, Climate Change and International History: Negotiating Science, G...

Peter D. McDonald, "Run and Jump: The Meaning of the 2D Platformer" (MIT Press, 2024)

15 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How abstract design decisions in 2D platform games create rich worlds of meaning for players. Since the 1980s, 2D platform games have captivated their...

Nick Jones, "Gooey Media: Screen Entertainment and the Graphic User Interface" (Edinburgh UP, 2023)

15 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Graphic User Interface, or GUI, is the adhesive centre of today’s screen entertainment web. From films and television to apps and videogames, it...

Eleanor Patterson, "Bootlegging the Airwaves: Alternative Histories of Radio and Television Distribution" (U Illinois Press, 2024)

12 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Long before internet archives and the anytime, anywhere convenience of streaming, people collected, traded, and shared radio and television content vi...

Zachary Loeb on the History of the End of the World

11 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Are you into the end of the world? Well, have we got the guest for you. In this episode, Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel interviews Zachary Loeb, as...

Zachary Loeb on the History of the End of the World

11 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Are you into the end of the world? Well, have we got the guest for you. In this episode, Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel interviews Zachary Loeb, as...

Brian Merchant, "Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech" (LIttle, Brown, 2023)

10 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

"Luddite" has become an insult and Brain Merchant wants to change that. Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech (Little,...

Hsuan L. Hsu, "Air Conditioning" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

08 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Air conditioning aspires to be unnoticed. Yet, by manipulating the air around us, it quietly conditions the baseline conditions of our physical, menta...

Christy Spackman, "The Taste of Water: Sensory Perception and the Making of an Industrialized Beverage" (U California Press, 2023)

08 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever wondered why your tap water tastes the way it does? The Taste of Water: Sensory Perception and the Making of an Industrialized Beverage...

Murray Dick, "The Infographic: A History of Data Graphics in News and Communications" (MIT Press, 2020)

07 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Infographics and data visualization are ubiquitous in our everyday media diet, particularly in news—in print newspapers, on television news, and onl...

Mike Duggan, "All Mapped Out: How Maps Shape Us" (Reaktion Books, 2024)

07 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Maps go far beyond just showing us where things are located. All Mapped Out: How Maps Shape Us (Reaktion, 2024) by Dr. Mike Duggan is an exploration...

Joanna Crosby, "Apples and Orchards Since the Eighteenth Century: Material Innovation and Cultural Tradition" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

05 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Showing how the history of the apple goes far beyond the orchard and into the social, cultural and technological developments of Britain and the USA, ...

Robert Charette on Researching the Material World

04 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, Peoples & Thing host Lee Vinsel interviews engineer, businessman, consultant, author, contributing editor at IEEE Magazine, and forme...

Francesca Sobande, "Big Brands Are Watching You: Marketing Social Justice and Digital Culture" (U California Press, 2024)

03 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Can brands really support positive social change? In Big Brands are Watching You: Marketing Social Justice and Digital Culture (U California Press, ...

Verity Harding, "AI Needs You: How We Can Change AI's Future and Save Our Own" (Princeton UP, 2024)

01 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Artificial intelligence may be the most transformative technology of our time. As AI's power grows, so does the need to figure out what--and who--this...

Carol Beggy, "Pencil" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

28 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A cylinder of baked graphite and clay in a wood case, the pencil creates as it is being destroyed. To love a pencil is to use it, to sharpen it, and t...

Sara J. Grossman, "Immeasurable Weather: Meteorological Data and Settler Colonialism from 1820 to Hurricane Sandy" (Duke UP, 2023)

28 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Immeasurable Weather: Meteorological Data and Settler Colonialism from 1820 to Hurricane Sandy (Duke UP, 2023), Sara J. Grossman explores how env...

Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu, "Experiments in Skin: Race and Beauty in the Shadows of Vietnam" (Duke UP, 2021)

26 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Through a creative focus on skin, in Experiments in Skin: Race and Beauty in the Shadows of Vietnam (Duke UP, 2021), Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu examines th...

Yanis Varoufakis, "Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism" (Melville House, 2023)

26 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism (Melville House, 2023), Yanis Varoufakis argues that capitalism is dead and a new economic era has begun....

The Taste of Water: A Conversation with Christy Spackman

26 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After WAY too long a hiatus, Peoples & Things is back! GET EXCITED!! In this episode, host Lee Vinsel interviews Christy Spackman, Assistant Professor...

Paul Scharre, "Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" (Norton, 2023)

24 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

An award-winning defense expert tells the story of today’s great power rivalry―the struggle to control artificial intelligence. A new industrial r...

What Does It Even Mean for a Machine to Generate?

24 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Listen to Episode No.8 of All We Mean, a Special Focus of this podcast. All We Mean is an ongoing discussion and debate about how we mean and why. ...

Jacob Ward, "Visions of a Digital Nation: Market and Monopoly in British Telecommunications" (MIT Press, 2024)

23 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Visions of a Digital Nation: Market and Monopoly in British Telecommunications (MIT Press, 2024), Jacob Ward explains why the privatization of Br...

Neil Lee, "Innovation for the Masses: How to Share the Benefits of the High-Tech Economy" (U California Press, 2024)

21 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How can we build a more equal economy? In Innovation for the Masses: How to Share the Benefits of the High-Tech Economy (U California Press, 2024), ...

Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson, "American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15" (FSG, 2023)

20 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1950s, an obsessive firearms designer named Eugene Stoner invented the AR-15 rifle in a California garage. High-minded and patriotic, Stoner so...

Nate Klemp, "Open: Living with an Expansive Mind in a Distracted World" (Sounds True, 2024)

19 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

With the avalanche of information we get every day, closing down our minds and hearts seems to be the only way to survive. We close down to our inner ...