PODCAST

The MIT Press Podcast

The MIT Press

Interviews with authors of MIT Press books.

education

All Episodes

57:39

David Zweig, "An Abundance of Caution: American...

The MIT Press Podcast ·

2025/06/23

An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions (MIT Press, 2025) is a devastating account of the decision-making process behind one of the worst American policy failures in a century—the extended closures of public schools during the pandemic. In fascinating and meticulously reported detail, David Zweig shows how some of the most trusted members of society—from Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists to eminent health officials—repeatedly made fundamental errors in

48:46

Elliot Lichtman, "The Computer Always Wins: A Playful...

The MIT Press Podcast ·

2025/06/22

In The Computer Always Wins: A Playful Introduction to Algorithms through Puzzles and Strategy Games (MIT Press, 2025), Elliot Lichtman will teach you some of computer science’s most powerful concepts in a refreshingly accessible way: exploring them through word games, board games, and strategy games you already know. Learn recursion by playing tic-tac-toe, efficient search through puzzle games like sudoku and Wordle, and machine learning by way of the playground classic rock-paper-scissors. Finish

79:58

Jeremy Stolow, "Picturing Aura: A Visual Biography"...

The MIT Press Podcast ·

2025/06/20

Picturing Aura: A Visual Biography (MIT Press, 2025) by Dr. Jeremy Stolow is the first book of its kind: an extended historical, anthropological, and philosophical study of modern efforts to visualize the hidden radiant force encompassing the living body known as our aura. This rich, interdisciplinary study by Dr. Stolow chronicles the rise and global spread of modern instruments and techniques of picturing aura, from the late nineteenth century to the present day, exploring how its images are put

67:27

Trans Technologies

The MIT Press Podcast ·

2025/06/19

How can technology creates new possibilities for transgender people? How do trans experiences, in turn, create new possibilities for technology?Trans Technologies, (MIT Press, 2025) by Dr. Oliver L. Haimson, explores how and why mainstream technologies often exclude or marginalize transgender users. Trans Technologies describes what happens when trans people take technology design into their own hands. Dr. Haimson, whose research into gender transition and technology has defined this area of

59:40

Jean J. Ryoo and Jane Margolis, "Power On!" (MIT...

The MIT Press Podcast ·

2025/06/09

An interview with Jean Ryoo and Jane Margolis about Power On!A diverse group of teenage friends learn how computing can be personally and politically empowering and why all students need access to computer science education. This lively graphic novel follows a diverse group of teenage friends as they discover that computing can be fun, creative, and empowering. Taylor, Christine, Antonio, and Jon seem like typical young teens—they communicate via endless texting, they share jokes, they worry

105:13

John Horn, "Inside the Competitor's Mindset: How to...

The MIT Press Podcast ·

2025/05/31

Inside the Competitor's Mindset: How to Predict Their Next Move and Position Yourself for Success (MIT Press, 2023) offers a roadmap to help leaders predict, understand, and react to their competitors’ moves. It is a valuable tool to help companies stay ahead of their competitors when the competition is intensifying. To make the right choice when a competitor is working hard to prevent it is difficult. This book demystifies the process. For organizations developing systematic tools to effectively

50:17

Ann McCallum Staats, "Fantastic Flora: The World's...

The MIT Press Podcast ·

2025/05/30

In our lovely interview, we celebrate Ann McCallum Staats' brand new book (just launched this week!), Fantastic Flora: The World’s Biggest, Baddest, and Smelliest Plants, wonderfully illustrated by Zoë Ingram, published by MIT Kids Press, an imprint of Candlewick. This is not your run-of-the-mill picture book. It's over 120 pages long and is intended for the 8-12 audience, although younger kids and adults will enjoy it too! Ann is the author of numerous other children’s books, including the Eat Your

39:07

Mitchell Thomashow, "To Know the World: A New Vision...

The MIT Press Podcast ·

2025/05/28

Why we must rethink our residency on the planet to understand the connected challenges of tribalism, inequity, climate justice, and democracy. How can we respond to the current planetary ecological emergency? In To Know the World: A New Vision for Environmental Learning (MIT Press, 2020), Mitchell Thomashow proposes that we revitalize, revisit, and reinvigorate how we think about our residency on Earth. First, we must understand that the major challenges of our time--migration, race, inequity,

45:48

The MIT Press Podcast ·

2025/05/27

Before the invention of the gummed envelope in the 1830s, how did people secure their private letters? The answer is letterlocking—the ingenious process of securing a letter using a combination of folds, tucks, slits, or adhesives such as sealing wax, so that it becomes its own envelope. This almost entirely forgotten practice, used by historical figures ranging from Elizabeth I and her spies to Japanese samurai lords, was an everyday activity for centuries, across cultures, borders, and social

74:54

Eric Heinze, "Coming Clean: The Rise of Critical...

The MIT Press Podcast ·

2025/05/16

What has gone wrong with the left—and what leftists must do if they want to change politics, ethics, and minds. Leftists have long taught that people in the West must take responsibility for centuries of classism, racism, colonialism, patriarchy, and other gross injustices. Of course, right-wingers constantly ridicule this claim for its “wokeness.” In Coming Clean: The Rise of Critical Theory and the Future of the Left ( MIT Press, 2025), Eric Heinze rejects the idea that we should be less woke

67:45

Jennifer Holt, "Cloud Policy: A History of Regulating...

The MIT Press Podcast ·

2025/05/12

How the United States' regulation of broadband pipelines, digital platforms, and data—together understood as “the cloud”—has eroded civil liberties, democratic principles, and the foundation of the public interest over the past century. Cloud Policy: A History of Regulating Pipelines, Platforms, and Data (MIT Press, 2024) is a policy history that chronicles how the past century of regulating media infrastructure in the United States has eroded global civil liberties as well as democratic principles

33:08

Tracy Fullerton and Matthew Farber, "The Well-Read...

The MIT Press Podcast ·

2025/05/09

How players evoke personal and subjective meanings through a new theory of player response. In The Well-Read Game: On Playing Thoughtfully (MIT Press, 2025), Tracy Fullerton and Matthew Farber explore the experiences we have when we play games: not the outcomes of play or the aesthetics of formal game structures but the ephemeral and emotional experiences of being in play. These are the private stories we tell ourselves as we play, the questions we ask, and our reactions to the game’s intent

65:20

Samuel Jay Keyser, "Play It Again, Sam: Repetition in...

The MIT Press Podcast ·

2025/05/08

Leonard Bernstein, in his famous Norton Lectures, extolled repetition, saying that it gave poetry its musical qualities and that music theorists' refusal to take it seriously did so at their peril. In Play It Again, Sam: Repetition in the Arts (MIT Press, 2025), Samuel Jay Keyser explores in detail the way repetition works in poetry, music, and painting. He argues, for example, that the same cognitive function underlies both how poets write rhyme in metrical verse and the way songwriters like Duke

73:44

Peter Krapp, "Computing Legacies: Digital Cultures of...

The MIT Press Podcast ·

2025/05/06

We're pleased to welcome Dr. Peter Krapp, the author of Computing Legacies: Digital Cultures of Simulation (MIT Press, 2024), to the New Books Network. In Computing Legacies, Peter Krapp explores a media history of simulation to excavate three salient aspects of digital culture. Firstly, he profiles simulation as cultural technique, enabling symbolic work and foregrounding hypothetical literacy. Secondly, he positions simulation as crucial for the preservation of cultural memory, where modeling,

69:56

Jessica Smith on Engineering and Public...

The MIT Press Podcast ·

2025/05/05

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks to Jessica Smith, Professor in the Engineering, Design, and Society Department and Dean’s Fellow for Earth and Society Programs of the Colorado School of Mines, about her work on engineering and public accountability in energy and mining industries. The pair discuss Smith’s long-held interests in mining and extractive industries, including her roots in coal country; her book, Extracting Accountability: Engineers and Corporate Social Responsibility (MIT Press,

52:05

Peter B. Kaufman, "The Moving Image: A User's Manual"...

The MIT Press Podcast ·

2025/04/22

Video (television, film, the moving image generally) is today’s most popular information medium. Two-thirds of the world’s internet traffic is video. Americans get their news and information more often from screens and speakers than through any other means. The Moving Image: A User's Manual (MIT Press, 2025) is the first authoritative account of how we have arrived here, together with the first definitive manual to help writers, educators, and publishers use video more effectively. Drawing on

64:57

Jennifer Clapp, "Titans of Industrial Agriculture:...

The MIT Press Podcast ·

2025/04/19

Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of farm machinery, fertilizer, seeds, and pesticides are sold to farmers around the world. Although agricultural inputs are a huge sector of the global economy, the lion's share of that market is controlled by a relatively small number of very large transnational corporations. The high degree of concentration among these agribusiness titans is striking, considering that just a few hundred years ago agricultural inputs were not even marketed goods

53:43

James Boyle Draws the Line Between Humans and AI

The MIT Press Podcast ·

2025/04/05

It’s the UConn Popcast, and we spoke with Duke Law Professor James Boyle about his new book The Line: AI and the Future of Personhood (MIT Press, 2024). We spoke with Boyle about how our legal and moral understandings of personhood are being challenged by advances in AI. We discussed the role of the law, popular culture, tests of sentience, and our capacity for empathy in shaping this urgent debate.James Boyle is William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law at Duke Law School and founder of the Center

62:23

A Philosophy of Echoes

The MIT Press Podcast ·

2025/03/17

We spend our 50th episode (the last of this season) with communication theorist Amit Pinchevski. Amit’s recent book Echo (MIT Press) explores its topic through mythology, etymology, history, technology, and philosophy. The book challenges the notion that echo is mere repetition. Instead, Pinchevski argues, echo is a generative medium that creatively expresses our relations to others and the world around us. Just as a baby first learns to speak by repeating the sounds of others, a philosophy of

43:20

Mia Consalvo et al., "Streaming by the Rest of Us:...

The MIT Press Podcast ·

2025/03/14

The vast majority of people who stream themselves playing videogames online do so with few or no viewers. In Streaming by the Rest of Us: Microstreaming Videogames on Twitch (MIT Press, 2025) Dr. Mia Consalvo, Dr. Marc Lajeunesse, and Dr. Andrei Zanescu investigate who they are, why they do so, and why this form of leisure activity is important to understand. Unlike the esports athletes and streaming superstars who receive the lion's share of journalistic and academic attention, microstreamers are

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