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PODCAST

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society

New Books Network

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox:

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All Episodes

64:04

Joshua Nall, "News from Mars: Mass Media and the...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2020/08/06

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re hearing an awful lot about the fraught relationship between science and media. In his book, News from Mars: Mass Media and the Forging of a New Astronomy, 1860-1910 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019), historian of science Joshua Nall shows us that a blurry boundary between science and journalism was a key feature—not a bug—of the emergence of modern astronomy. Focusing on objects and media, such as newspapers, encyclopedias, cigarette cards, and

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38:14

Alex Sayf Cummings, "Brain Magnet: Research Triangle...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2020/08/05

Beginning in the 1950s, a group of academics, businesspeople, and politicians set out on an ambitious project to remake North Carolina’s low-wage economy. They pitched the universities of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill as the kernel of a tech hub, Research Triangle Park, which would lure a new class of highly educated workers. In the process, they created a blueprint for what would become known as the knowledge economy: a future built on intellectual labor and the production of intellectual

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68:29

Anton Howes, "Arts and Minds: How the Royal Society...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2020/08/04

Over the past 300 years, The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce has tried to improve British life in every way imaginable. It has sought to influence education, commerce, music, art, architecture, communications, food, and every other corner of society. Arts and Minds: How the Royal Society of Arts Changed a Nation (Princeton University Press, 2020), written by the historian of innovation and the RSA’s resident historian Anton Howes, is the fascinating story of

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65:21

Melissa J. Wilde, "Birth Control Battles: How Race...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2020/08/03

Although it has largely been erased from the collective memory of American Christianity, the debate over eugenics was a major factor in the history of 20th-century religious movements, with many churches actively supporting the pseudoscience as a component of the Social Gospel. In Birth Control Battles: How Race and Class Divided American Religion (University of California Press, 2020), Dr. Melissa J. Wilde, Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, demonstrates that support for

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51:17

Charlton D. McIlwain, "Black Software: The Internet...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2020/08/03

In Black Software: The Internet and Racial Justice, from AfroNet to Black Lives Matter (Oxford Univeristy Press), Charlton McIlwain, Vice Provost for Faculty Engagement and Development and professor of media, culture, and communication at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, examines the intersection of racial justice movements, technology, and culture. McIlwain names the often ignored or neglected African American pioneers of computer and Internet technology. At the

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80:46

Mari K. Webel, "The Politics of Disease Control:...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2020/08/03

In The Politics of Disease Control. Sleeping Sickness in Eastern Africa, 1890-1920 (Ohio University Press, 2019), Mari K. Webel tells a history of colonial interventions among three communities of the Great Lakes region of East Africa. At the dawn of the twentieth century, Eastern African societies faced a range of social, political and economic challenges, many of which were connected to the establishment of British and German colonial regimes. In the midst of these, African societies experienced

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42:12

Olivia Weisser, "ll Composed: Sickness, Gender, and...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2020/07/31

On this episode of New Books in History, Jana Byars talks with Olivia Weisser, Associate Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts – Boston, to talk about her 2015 Yale University Press release, Ill Composed: Sickness, Gender, and Belief in Early Modern England. Olivia Weisser can be described as an historian of Early Modern England, an historian of medicine, and as a gender historian. This book sits right at the intersection of all three of these subfields and contributes to our

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73:42

T. Paulus and A. Wise, "Looking for Insight,...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2020/07/30

In this episode, I speak with Dr. Trena Paulus of Eastern Tennessee State University and Dr. Alyssa Wise of New York University on their new book, Looking for Insight, Transformation, and Learning in Online Talk (Routledge, 2019). The book offers a comprehensive discussion of conducting research on online talk, which includes but is not limited to synchronous and asynchronous interactions on social media, discussion forums, and other forms of digital communication platforms. It walks readers through

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46:01

Sarah B. Rodriguez, "The Love Surgeon: A Story of...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2020/07/30

Dr. James Burt believed women’s bodies were broken, and only he could fix them. In the 1950s, this Ohio OB-GYN developed what he called “love surgery,” a unique procedure he maintained enhanced the sexual responses of a new mother, transforming her into “a horny little house mouse.” Burt did so without first getting the consent of his patients. Yet he was allowed to practice for over thirty years, mutilating hundreds of women in the process. It would be easy to dismiss Dr. Burt as a monstrous

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63:36

Solomon Goldstein-Rose, "The 100% Solution: A Plan...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2020/07/29

At age 26, Solomon Goldstein-Rose has already spent more time thinking about climate change than most of us will in our lifetimes. He’s been a climate activist since age 11, studied engineering and public policy to understand what physically has to happen to solve climate change, and served in the Massachusetts state legislature on a climate-focused platform. In 2018 he canceled his campaign for re-election so he could work full-time on climate change at the national and global levels. The 100%

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61:53

Paulo Drinot, "The Sexual Question: A History of...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2020/07/29

Paulo Drinot’s The Sexual Question: A History of Prostitution in Peru, 1850s-1950s (Cambridge University Press, 2020), studies the interplay of sexuality, society, and the state in Peru in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Drinot analyzes the rules and norms that governed prostitution and venereal disease in this period, and tracks how regulation of prostitution was implemented in the early twentieth century, and then seemingly abandoned in the 1950s. Drinot’s story foregrounds the many agents

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47:22

Philip Butler, "Black Transhuman Liberation Theology:...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2020/07/29

In his book Black Transhuman Liberation Theology: Technology and Spirituality (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), Philip Butler explores what might happen if Black people in the United States merged technology and spirituality in their fight towards materializing liberating realities. The discussions shaping what it means for humans to exist with technology and as part of technology are already underway: transhumanism suggests that any use of technology to augment intellectual, psychological, or physical

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36:51

Sasha Costanza-Chock, "Design Justice: Community-Led...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2020/07/27

In Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need (MIT Press, 2020), Sasha Costanza-Chock, an associate professor of Civic Media at MIT, builds the case for designers and researchers to make the communities they impact co-equal partners in the products, services, and organizations they create. This requires more than eliciting participation from community members, particularly if the goal is extraction. On the contrary, design justice demands a deep understanding of the

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53:47

Andrew Kettler, "The Smell of Slavery: Olfactory...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2020/07/27

In his new book, The Smell of Slavery: Olfactory Racism and the Atlantic World (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Dr. Andrew Kettler charts the impact that smell had on the making of race and justifications for enslavement in the Atlantic world. Western European defined the African subject as a scented object, appropriated as filthy to create levels of ownership through discourse that marked African peoples as unable to access spaces of Western modernity. So powerful was this process of embodied

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50:16

Sandra Postel, "Replenish: The Virtuous Cycle of...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2020/07/22

In Replenish: The Virtuous Cycle of Water and Prosperity (Island Press), Sandra Postel acknowledges society’s past mishaps with managing water and emphasizes our future is contingent upon rehabilitating our science, tech, and political solutions. To understand our past and provide hope for our future Sandra takes readers around the world to explore water projects that work with, rather than against, nature’s rhythms. Sandra discusses her journey to learning about these projects. What’s

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59:25

Marc Zimmer, "The State of Science" (Prometheus...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2020/07/21

New research and innovations in the field of science are leading to life-changing and world-altering discoveries like never before. What does the horizon of science look like? Who are the scientists that are making it happen? And, how are we to introduce these revolutions to a society in which a segment of the population has become more and more skeptical of science? These are the questions which Marc Zimmer, professor of chemistry at Connecticut College, asks in his new book, The State of Science:

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58:15

Will Rollason, "Motorbike People: Power and Politics...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2020/07/20

Will Rollason is senior lecturer of anthropology at Brunel University London. He’s written a fascinating book titled Motorbike People: Power and Politics on Rwandan Streets (Lexington Books, 2020). Will’s book is an ethnography of taxi-moto drivers in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital city. Not only is his book a rich account of the everyday lives of motorcylists’ (motari) everyday lives, Will’s research challenge anthropological understanding of the concept of power and its relationship to culture. He

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37:24

Christina Dunbar-Hester, "Hacking Diversity: The...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2020/07/20

In Hacking Diversity: The Politics of inclusion in Open Technology Cultures (Princeton University Press, 2020), Christina-Dunbar Hester, an associate professor in the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, explores the world of open technology – communities centered on knowledge sharing. In particular, she investigates how these communities are considering the question of diversity and inclusion. Using ethnographic methods – interviews, participant observation, and deep readings of

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47:48

Philip Reid, "The Merchant Ship in the British...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2020/07/20

To the average landlubber, the merchant ships that crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1800 seem little different from their counterparts two centuries beforehand. By detailing how these ships were built and operated, though, Philip Reid shows in his book The Merchant Ship in the British Atlantic, 1600-1800 (Brill, 2020), how these vessels underwent considerable adaptation over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries in response to evolving technologies and the demands of their industry. As Reid

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52:42

Mark Anderson, "From Boas to Black Power: Racism,...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2020/07/17

Mark Anderson’s From Boas to Black Power: Racism, Liberalism and American Anthropology (Stanford University Press) is at once a story about US anthropology and US liberalism from the 1930s to the 1960s. By interrogating the Boasian intervention into the idea of biological race, Anderson shows how, despite their progressive and anti-racist intentions, Boas and ‘the Boasians’ naturalised the idea of the United States as a white nation and helped to entrench problematic discourses, such as

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2,490 results

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