New Books in Technology

Tom Wheeler, "From Gutenberg to Google: The History of Our Future" (Brookings, 2019)

27 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It's easy to get sidetracked while writing a book. But imagine being interrupted by the President of the United States. That happened to Tom Wheeler, ...

Discussion of Massive Online Peer Review and Open Access Publishing

19 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the information age, knowledge is power. Hence, facilitating the access to knowledge to wider publics empowers citizens and makes societies more de...

Kartik Hosanagar, "A Human’s Guide to Machine Intelligence: How Algorithms Are Shaping Our Lives" (Viking, 2019)

12 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Our guest today is Kartik Hosanagar, the author of A Human’s Guide to Machine Intelligence: How Algorithms Are Shaping Our Lives and How We Can Stay...

James Schwoch, "Wired into Nature: The Telegraph and the North American Frontier" (U Illinois Press, 2018)

06 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It's been called the first Internet. In the nineteenth century, the telegraph spun a world wide web of cables and poles, carrying electronic signals w...

Joy Lisi Rankin, "A People’s History of Computing in the United States" (Harvard UP, 2018).

19 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

We know, perhaps too well, the innovation-centric history of personal computing. Yet, computer users were not necessarily microelectronics consumers f...

Adrienne Mayor, "Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology" (Princeton UP, 2018)

06 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The first robot to walk the earth was a bronze giant called Talos. This wondrous machine was created not by the MIT Robotics Lab, but by Hephaestus, t...

Matthew Longo, "The Politics of Borders: Sovereignty, Security, and the Citizen after 9/11" (Cambridge UP, 2017)

04 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In his new book, Matthew Longo takes the reader on an unusual journey, at least within political theory, since his work combines a normative political...

Jan English-Lueck, "Cultures@SiliconValley: Second Edition" (Stanford UP, 2017)

28 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Silicon Valley is understood to be one of the most fast-paced regions on earth, where innovation and upheaval are part and parcel of daily life. Imagi...

Is Social Media Killing Democracy? with Regina Rini

22 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Regia Rini is the Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Moral and Social Cognition at the York University. Her research resides at the intersections...

Megan Finn, "Documenting Aftermath: Information Infrastructures in the Wake of Disasters" (MIT Press, 2018)

08 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Megan Finn's Documenting Aftermath: Information Infrastructures in the Wake of Disasters (MIT Press, 2018) is a fascinating examination of how informa...

Pamela E. Klassen, "The Story of Radio Mind: A Missionary's Journey on Indigenous Land" (U Chicago Press, 2018)

24 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

At the dawn of the radio age in the 1920s, Frederick Du Vernet—Anglican archbishop and self-declared scientist—announced a psychic channel by whic...

A. G. Holloway and J. W. White, "Our Little Monitor: The Greatest Invention of the Civil War" (Kent State UP, 2018)

19 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Jonathan W. White, an associate professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University, is the co-author of “Our Little Monitor”: The Gre...

Paola Bertucci, "Artisanal Enlightenment: Science and the Mechanical Arts in Old Regime France" (Yale UP, 2018)

06 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Paola Bertucci's Artisanal Enlightenment: Science and the Mechanical Arts in Old Regime France (Yale University Press, 2018) is an innovative new look...

McKenzie Wark, "General Intellects: Twenty-One Thinkers for the Twenty-First Century" (Verso, 2017)

06 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

McKenzie Wark’s new book offers 21 focused studies of thinkers working in a wide range of fields who are worth your attention. The chapters of Gener...

Chris Horrocks, “The Joy of Sets: A Short History of the Television” (Reaktion Press, 2017)

08 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Television started as a dream of nineteenth-century science fiction. It took its place in the twentieth-century home, and became a fixture of family l...

Raymond Boyle, “The Talent Industry: Television, Cultural Intermediaries and New Digital Pathways” (Palgrave, 2018)

06 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

What are the hidden structures of the television industry? In The Talent Industry: Television, Cultural Intermediaries and New Digital Pathways (Palgr...

J. Obert, A. Poe, A. Sarat, eds., “The Lives of Guns” (Oxford UP, 2018)

01 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

What if guns “are not merely carriers of action, but also actors themselves?” That’s the question that animates and unites Jonathan Obert‘s an...

N. M. Sambaluk, “The Other Space Race: Eisenhower and the Quest for Aerospace Security” (Naval Institute Press, 2015)

29 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Many people place the beginning of the American space program at 7:28pm, October 4, 1957 – the moment the Soviet Union launched the first satellite,...

Lee Humphreys, “The Qualified Self: Social Media and the Accounting of Everyday Life” (MIT Press, 2018)

19 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Physical journals, scrapbooks, and photo albums all offer their owners the opportunity to chronicle both mundane and extravagant events. But unlike so...

Wade Roush, ed., “Twelve Tomorrows” (MIT Press, 2018)

18 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Science fiction is, at its core, about tomorrow—exploring through stories what the universe may look like one or 10 or a million years in the future...

Rachel Z. Arndt, “Beyond Measure” (Sarabande Books, 2018)

12 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Our world today is full of algorithms and metrics designed to help us keep up, to keep track, to keep going. New devices, such as the smartwatch, now ...

Byron Reese, “The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity” (Simon & Schuster, 2018)

04 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In his new book, The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity (Simon & Schuster, 2018), futurist, technologist, and C...

P.W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking, “LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018)

02 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018), by P.W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking, outlines the history of social m...

Ben Epstein, “The Only Constant is Change: Technology, Political Communication, and Innovation Over Time” (Oxford UP, 2018)

22 Aug 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Ben Epstein’s new book, The Only Constant is Change: Technology, Political Communication, and Innovation over Time (Oxford University Press, 2018), ...

Julie A. Cohn, “The Grid: Biography of an American Technology” (MIT Press, 2017)

15 Aug 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Though usually a background concern, the aging U.S. electric grid has lately been on the minds of both legislators and consumers. Congress wants to en...

Laura Kalba, “Color in the Age of Impressionism: Commerce, Technology, and Art” (Penn State UP, 2018)

14 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

When you imagine the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, what colors do you see? Whatever comes to mind, Laura Kalba’s, Color in the Age of...

Jacob N. Shapiro, “Small Wars, Big Data: The Information Revolution in Modern Conflict” (Princeton UP, 2018)

07 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Small Wars, Big Data: The Information Revolution in Modern Conflict (Princeton University Press, 2018), Eli Berman, Joseph H. Felter, and Jacob N. Sha...

Larry Cuban, “The Flight of a Butterfly or the Path of a Bullet? Using Technology to Transform Teaching and Learning” (Harvard Education Press, 2018)

06 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In The Flight of a Butterfly or the Path of a Bullet? Using Technology to Transform Teaching and Learning (Harvard Education Press, 2018), Larry Cuban...

Hala Auji, “Printing Arab Modernity: Book Culture and the American Press in Nineteenth-Century Beirut” (Brill, 2016)

05 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In Middle Eastern history, the printing press has been both over- and under-assigned significance as an agent of social change. Hala Auji’s Printin...

B.J. Mendelson, “Privacy: And How to Get It Back” (Curious Reads, 2017)

03 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The use of our data and the privacy, or lack thereof, that we have when we go online has become a topic of increasing importance as technology becomes...

Yutao Sun and Seamus Grimes, “China and Global Value Chains” (Routledge, 2018)

30 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Today I was joined by Seamus Grimes from Ireland where he is Emeritus Professor at the National University of Ireland, Galway. With Yutao Sun (Dalian ...

George Perkovich and Ariel E. Levite, “Understanding Cyber Conflict: 14 Analogies” (Georgetown UP, 2017)

18 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Understanding Cyber Conflict: 14 Analogies (Georgetown University Press, 2017), edited by George Perkovich and Ariel E. Levite, uses analogies to conv...

Stephen Monteiro, “The Fabric of Interface: Mobile Media, Design, and Gender” (MIT Press, 2017)

06 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Sewing, knitting, quilting, the crafts related to fabric making, are usually not what we think about when we consider our digital communications devic...

Alex Wade, “Playback: A Genealogy of 1980s British Videogames” (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018)

23 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In his book Playback: A Genealogy of 1980s British Videogames (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), Alex Wade examines the culture of bedroom coding, arcades, ...

Christopher J. Lee, “Jet Lag” (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017)

27 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

My father has this personality quirk that drives me crazy. Whenever and wherever he travels, no matter how far, he refuses to reset his watch to the l...

Molly Wright Steenson, “Architectural Intelligence: How Designers and Architects Created the Digital Landscape” (MIT Press, 2017)

27 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

For most people the field of architecture is not what they think about when discussing artificial intelligence as we describe it today. Yet, architect...

Jennifer Hart, “Ghana on the Go: African Mobility in the Age of Motor Transportation” (Indiana UP, 2016)

23 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Our guest today was Dr. Jennifer Hart who talked to us about her recently published book Ghana on the Go: African Mobility in the Age of Motor Transpo...

Michael Shermer, “Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia” (Henry Holt, 2018)

20 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

For millennia, religions have concocted numerous manifestations of heaven and the afterlife, and though no one has ever returned from such a place to ...

Dmitry Novikov, “Cybernetics: Past to Future” (Springer Verlag, 2016)

15 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

With all of its entailed engagements with epistemology, emergence, and self-organization, cybernetics began (and arguably still is) the science of com...

Andrew Keen, “How To Fix The Future” (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2018)

06 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

As a historian I find myself constantly asking the question “Is that really new, or is it rather something that looks new but isn’t?” If you rea...

Nick Montfort, “The Future” (MIT, 2017)

29 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Popular culture provides many visions of the future. From The Jetsons to Futurama, Black Mirror to Minority Report, Western culture has predicted a fu...

Leo Coleman, “A Moral Technology: Electrification as Political Ritual in New Delhi” (Cornell UP, 2017)

19 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

We take electricity for granted. But the material grids and wires that bring light to homes and connect places are also objects of moral concern, poli...

Thomas Mullaney, “The Chinese Typewriter: A History” (MIT Press, 2017)

09 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Tom Mullaney’s new book The Chinese Typewriter: A History (MIT Press, 2017) provides a fascinating first look at the development of modern Chinese i...

Liss C. Werner, “Cybernetics: State of the Art” (Tech Uni of Berlin Press, 2017)

09 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

It’s no secret that we continue to live in the midst of digital revolution that continues to unfold in a rapidly accelerating fashion. Digital conne...

Chelsea Schelly, “Dwelling in Resistance: Living with Alternative Technologies in America” (Rutgers UP, 2017)

28 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Technology is a form of material culture and is a human activity. The way in which humans view technology is a social construction in which people use...

Julien Mailland and Kevin Driscoll, “Minitel: Welcome to the Internet” (MIT Press, 2017)

21 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

When discussing Internet history, many within the United States believe the creation myth of an Internet born in Silicon Valley. But aspects of the In...

Alfie Bown, “The Playstation Dreamworld” (Polity, 2017)

20 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

How can Lacan help us to understand the subversive potential of video games? In The Playstation Dreamworld (Polity, 2017), Alfie Bown, Assistant Profe...

Zek Valkyrie, “Game Worlds Get Real: How Who We Are Online Became Who We Are Offline” (Praeger, 2017)

15 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Zek Valkyrie teaches at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs. His new book, Game Worlds Get Real: How Who We Are Online Became Who We Are Of...

Brian Clegg, “Big Data: How the Information Revolution Is Transforming Our Lives” (Icon Books, 2017)

19 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Big Data: How the Information Revolution Is Transforming Our Lives (Icon Books, 2017), by Brian Clegg, is a relatively short book about a subject that...

Eileen Le Han, “Micro-Blogging Memories: Weibo and Collective Remembering in Contemporary China” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)

12 Jul 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Since its invention, the Internet has become a fundamental part of our lives. Since the invention of social media, communicative technologies have cha...

Simone Muller, “Wiring the World: The Social and Cultural Creation of Global Telegraph Networks” (Columbia UP, 2016)

10 Jul 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Simone Muller’s Wiring the World: The Social and Cultural Creation of Global Telegraph Networks (Columbia University Press, 2016) is a superb accoun...

Thomas Hazlett, “The Political Spectrum: The Tumultuous Liberation of Wireless Technology” (Yale UP, 2017)

30 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

What better way to explore the history of media regulation than to go on a journey with the former chief economist of the FCC? Prior to introduction o...

Andre Sirois, “Hip-Hop DJs and the Evolution of Technology: Cultural Exchange, Innovation, and Democratization” (Peter Lang, 2016)

13 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

What is the role of the deejay in shaping hip-hop? Did deejays shape the technology that is used to create the music or were they simply consumers of ...

Marilyn Palmer and Ian West, “Technology and the Country House” (Historic England Publishing/U.Chicago, 2016)

26 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

For the aristocracy in Britain and Ireland, country house living was dependent upon the labors of men and women who performed innumerable chores invol...

Sharrona Pearl, “Face/On: Face Transplants and the Ethics of the Other” (U. Chicago Press, 2017)

18 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Sharrona Pearl‘s new book is an absolute pleasure to read. Face/On: Face Transplants and the Ethics of the Other (The University of Chicago Press, 2...

James Poyner, “Trump Tweets: His Social Media Phenomenon” (Wilkinson Publishing, 2017)

18 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The title of James Poyner’s book, Trump Tweets: His Social Media Phenomenon (Wilkinson Publishing, 2017), tells you everything you need to know abou...

Willliam Rankin, “After the Map: Cartography, Navigation, and the Transformation of Territory in the Twentieth Century” (U. Chicago Press, 2016)

17 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Policymakers and the public clamored for maps throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Indeed, maps were a necessity for war, navigation, a...

Sophia Roosth, “Synthetic: How Life Got Made” (U Chicago Press, 2017)

13 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Sophia Roosth‘s wonderful new book follows researchers clustered around MIT beginning in 2003 who named themselves synthetic biologists. A historica...

Helen Anne Curry, “Evolution Made to Order: Plant Breeding and Technological Innovation in Twentieth-Century America” (U. Chicago Press, 2016)

08 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Nowadays, it might seem perplexing for the founder of a seed company to express the intention to “shock Mother Nature,” or at least in bad taste. ...

Matt Pearl, “The Solo Video Journalist: Doing It All and Doing it Well in TV Multimedia Journalism” (Focal Press, 2016)

04 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

While the title of Matt Pearl‘s book, The Solo Video Journalist: Doing it All and Doing It Well in TV Multimedia Journalism (Focal Press, 2016), hin...

Democracy and Dialogue Online with Joshua Cohen

20 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Joshua Cohen is a faculty member of Apple University, and is Distinguished Senior Fellow at the School of Law, the Department of Philosophy, and the ...

Donna Freitas, “The Happiness Effect: How Social Media is Driving a Generation to Appear Perfect at Any Cost” (Oxford UP, 2017)

18 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In The Happiness Effect: How Social Media is Driving a Generation to Appear Perfect at Any Cost (Oxford University Press, 2017), Donna Freitas investi...

Amit Prasad, “Imperial Technoscience: Transnational Histories of MRI in the United States, Britain, and India” (MIT, 2014)

18 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Amit Prasad is widely admired for using Postcolonial Studies to explore questions about science, technology and medicine. In Imperial Technoscience: T...

Democracy and Social Media with Michael Lynch

05 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Social Media rewards snap judgments and blind conviction. Michael Lynch finds this troubling. Michael P. Lynch is Professor of Philosophy and Direct...

Danielle Knafo and Rocco Lo Bosco, “The Age of Perversion: Desire and Technology in Psychoanalysis and Culture” (Routledge, 2016)

27 Mar 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The wish to transcend one’s mortality, and the anxiety associated with being unable to do so, are universal human experiences. People deal with thes...

Jessie Daniels, Karen Gregory, and Tressie McMillan Cottom, eds “Digital Sociologies” (Policy Press, 2016)

09 Feb 2017

Contributed by Lukas

How do we do sociology in the digital era? In Digital Sociologies (Policy Press, 2016) Jessie Daniels, Professor of Sociology at Hunter College and Th...

Matthew L. Jones, “Reckoning with Matter: Calculating Machines, Innovation, and Thinking about Thinking from Pascal to Babbage” (U. Chicago Press, 2016)

23 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew L. Jones’s wonderful new book traces a history of failed efforts to make calculating machines, from Blaise Pascal’s work in the 1640s thro...

Dave Karpf, “Analytic Activism: Digital Listening and the New Political Strategy” (Oxford UP, 2016)

09 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

For the start of 2017, Dave Karpf is back on the podcast with his new book, Analytic Activism: Digital Listening and the New Political Strategy (Oxfor...

Nicholas A. John, “The Age of Sharing” (Polity Press, 2016)

06 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In his new book The Age of Sharing (Polity Press, 2016), the sociologist and media scholar Nicholas A. John documents the history and current meanings...

Heather Dowd, “Classroom Management in the Digital Age: Effective Practices for Technology-Rich Learning Spaces” (EdTechTeam, 2016)

05 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I speak with Heather Dowd, the author of Classroom Management in the Digital Age: Effective Practices for Technology-Rich Learning Sp...

Carroll Pursell, “From Playgrounds to PlayStation: The Interaction of Technology and Play” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2015)

29 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Carroll Pursell‘s From Playgrounds to PlayStation: The Interaction of Technology and Play (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015) explores how play r...

Alecia Swasy, “How Journalists Use Twitter: The Changing Landscape of U.S. Newsrooms” (Lexington Books, 2016)

12 Nov 2016

Contributed by Lukas

With messages limited to 140 characters, Twitter once drew skepticism, even scorn, from journalists who saw little role for the social-media platform ...

Asif A. Siddiqi, “The Red Rockets’ Glare: Spaceflight and the Soviet Imagination, 1857-1957” (Cambridge UP, 2013)

30 Sep 2016

Contributed by Lukas

In The Red Rockets’ Glare: Spaceflight and the Soviet Imagination, 1857-1957 (Cambridge University Press, 2013), Asif Siddiqi approaches the history...

Milton Chen, “Education Nation: Six Leading Edges of Innovation in Our Schools” (Jossey Bass, 2012)

26 Sep 2016

Contributed by Lukas

It feels like schools are in the midst of unprecedented change — sometimes more in different places and sometimes more in different ways. Many peopl...

Marc Raboy, “Marconi: The Man Who Networked the World” (Oxford UP, 2016)

21 Sep 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Our modern networked world owes an oftentimes unacknowledged debt to Guglielmo Marconi. As Marc Raboy demonstrates in Marconi: The Man Who Networked t...

E.R. Truitt, “Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art” (U. of Pennsylvania Press, 2015)

21 Sep 2016

Contributed by Lukas

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Clarke’s third law, coined in 1973, expresses the difficulty that peopl...

Mary Chayko, “Superconnected: The Internet, Digital Media, and Techno-Social Life” (SAGE, 2016)

13 Sep 2016

Contributed by Lukas

New technology has made us more connected than ever before. This has its advantages: instantaneous communication, expanded circles of influence, acces...

George Couros, “The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity” (Dave Burgess Consulting, 2015)

13 Sep 2016

Contributed by Lukas

One of the most commonly used words right now in education is “innovation.” It seems to be part of any response to our collective anxiety over the...

Jean Chalaby, “The Format Age: Television’s Entertainment Revolution” (Polity, 2015)

29 Aug 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Television had been transformed by the rise of the format. In The Format Age: Television’s Entertainment Revolution Jean Chalaby, Professor of Inter...

Daniel Kreiss, “Prototype Politics: Technology-Intensive Campaigning and the Data of Democracy” (Oxford UP, 2016)

29 Aug 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Daniel Kreiss is back on the podcast with his new book Prototype Politics: Technology-Intensive Campaigning and the Data of Democracy (Oxford Universi...

James Rodger Fleming, “Inventing Atmospheric Science: Bjerknes, Rossby, Wexler, and the Foundations of Modern Meteorology” (MIT Press, 2016)

26 Aug 2016

Contributed by Lukas

This is a book about the future – the historical future as three interconnected generations of atmospheric researchers experienced it and envisioned...

Benjamin Peters, “How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet” (MIT Press, 2016)

16 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Something we might think of as the Soviet internet once existed, according to Benjamin Peters‘ new book, and its failure was neither natural nor ine...

Ronald R. Kline, “The Cybernetics Moment: Or, Why We Call Our Age the Information Age” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2015)

08 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

I like to think (it has to be!) of a cybernetic ecology where we are free of our labors and joined back to nature, returned to our mammal brothe...

Greg Jenner, “A Million Years in a Day: A Curious History of Everyday Life from Stone Age to Phone Age” (St. Martin’s Press, 2016)

26 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Greg Jenner’s A Million Years in a Day: A Curious History of Everyday Life from Stone Age to Phone Age (St. Martins Press, 2016), explores the histo...

Mark Carrigan, “Social Media for Academics” (Sage, 2016)

27 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

How can academics respond to the rise of social media? Or should they respond at all? In Social Media for Academics (Sage, 2016), Mark Carrigan, from ...

Alfie Bown, “Enjoying It: Candy Crush and Capitalism” (Zero Books, 2015)

18 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

What is enjoyment and what can contemporary critical theory tell us about it? In Enjoying It: Candy Crush and Capitalism (Zero Books, 2015), Alfie Bow...

Benjamin Castleman, “The 160-Character Solution: How Text Messaging and Other Behavioral Strategies Can Improve Education” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2015)

03 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Teenagers live in their phones. As an educator you can try to pull them away or meet them where they are. The 160-Character Solution: How Text Messagi...

Phillip Penix-Tadsen, “Cultural Code: Video Games and Latin America” (MIT Press, 2016)

14 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Symbols have meanings that change depending upon the cultural context. But how do we discuss symbols, their meanings, and their cultural contexts with...

David R. Brake, “Sharing our Lives Online: Risks and Exposure in Social Media” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)

29 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

With the growth of social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, we are increasingly heading toward a radically open society. In Shari...

Jeffery Pomerantz, “Metadata” (MIT, 2015)

22 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

What is the “stuff” that fuels the information society in which we live? In his new book, Metadata (MIT 2015), information scientist Jeffrey Pomer...

Finn Brunton, “Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet” (MIT Press, 2013)

16 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Finn Brunton‘s Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet (MIT Press, 2013) is a cultural history of those communications that seek to capture our atten...

Paul R. Josephson, “Fish Sticks, Sports Bras, and Aluminum Cans: The Politics of Everyday Technologies” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2015)

29 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Paul R. Josephson‘s new book explores everyday technologies – fish sticks, sports bras, sugar, bananas, aluminum cans, potatoes, fructose, and mor...

Barry Brown and Oskar Juhlin, “Enjoying Machines” (MIT 2015)

06 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

When we consider the television, we think not only about how it’s used, but also it’s impact on culture. The television, tv, telly, or tube, becam...

Nathan Altice, “I Am Error: The Nintendo Family Computer-Entertainment System Platform” (MIT Press, 2015)

23 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The genre of “platform studies” offers both researchers and readers more than an examination of the technical machinations of a computing system. ...

Megan Prelinger, “Inside the Machine: Art and Invention in the Electronic Age” (Norton, 2015)

19 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Megan Prelinger‘s beautiful new book brings together the histories of technology and visuality to ask the question, “What cultural history of elec...

John Durham Peters, “The Marvelous Clouds: Toward a Philosophy of Elemental Media” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)

17 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

John Durham Peters‘ wonderful new book is a brilliant and beautifully-written consideration of natural environments as subjects for media studies. A...

Eric T. Meyer and Ralph Schroeder, “Knowledge Machines: Digital Transformations of the Sciences and Humanities” (MIT Press, 2015)

15 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

By now it is incontrovertible that new technology has had an effect on how regular people get information. Whether in the form of an online newspaper ...

Gillian Isaacs Russell, “Screen Relations: The Limits of Computer-Mediated Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy” (Karnac, 2015)

13 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

At New Books in Psychoanalysis, interviews are conducted using Skype. As the program is audio rather than video based, it never occurred to me to use ...

Joseph M. Reagle, “Reading the Comments: Likers, Haters and Manipulators at the Bottom of the Web” (MIT Press, 2015)

02 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

What do we know about the individuals who make comments on online news stories, blogs, videos and other media? What kind of people take the time to po...

Jessica Baldwin-Philippi, “Using Technology, Building Democracy: Digital Campaigning and the Construction of Citizenship” (Oxford UP, 2015)

28 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Jessica Baldwin-Philippi is the author of Using Technology, Building Democracy: Digital Campaigning and the Construction of Citizenship (Oxford Univer...