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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

67:27

Trans Technologies

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

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

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52:25

Anna Gjika, "When Rape Goes Viral: Youth and Sexual...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/06/18

Stories of teen sexting scandals, cyberbullying, and image-based sexual abuse have become commonplace fixtures of the digital age, with many adults struggling to identify ways to monitor young people's digital engagement. In When Rape Goes Viral: Youth and Sexual Assault in the Digital Age (Univ of California Press, 2023), Anna Gjika argues that rather than focusing on surveillance, we should examine such incidents for what they tell us about youth peer cultures and the gender norms and sexual

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40:38

Violet Moller, "Inside the Stargazer's Palace: The...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/06/18

In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus declared the earth revolved around the Sun, overturning centuries of scholastic presumption. A new age was coming into view – one guided by observation, technology and logic.But omens and elixirs did not disappear from the sixteenth-century laboratory. Charms and potions could still be found nestled between glistening brass instruments and leather-bound tomes. The line between the natural and supernatural remained porous, yet to be defined. From the icy Danish

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61:34

Ben Snyder on Spy Plane: Inside Baltimore’s...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/06/16

In this 100th episode (!!!) of Peoples & Things, host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Benjamin H. Snyder, Associate Professor of Sociology at Williams College, about his recent book, Spy Plane: Inside Baltimore’s Surveillance Experiment (University of California Press, 2024). Spy Plane examines how the city of Baltimore, Maryland, came to adopt a corporate-run surveillance program using aerial surveillance planes that could supposedly photograph and track every person in public. Snyder bases his account on

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44:57

Kean Birch, "Data Enclaves" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/06/14

Data Enclaves (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023) focuses on our increasing dependence upon Big Tech to live, manage, and enjoy our lives. The author examines how we freely exchange our personal data for access to online platforms, services, and devices without proper consideration of the implications of this trade. Our personal data is the defining resource of the emerging digital economy, and it is increasingly concentrated in a few data enclaves controlled by Big Tech firms, cementing an increasingly

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55:14

Sarah Bilston, "The Lost Orchid: A Story of Victorian...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/06/11

In 1818, a curious root arrived in a small English village, tucked—seemingly by accident—in a packing case mailed from Brazil. The amateur botanist who cultivated it soon realized that he had something remarkable on his hands: an exceptionally rare orchid never before seen on British shores. It arrived just as “orchid mania” was sweeping across Europe and North America, driving a vast plant trade that catered to wealthy private patrons as well as the fast-growing middle classes eager to display

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59:40

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

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

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

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83:53

Beth Linker on Slouch: Posture Panic in Modern America

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/06/02

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with historian Beth Linker, Samuel H. Preston Endowed Term Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the Department of the History and Sociology of Science, about her recent book, Slouch: Postural Panic in Modern America (Princeton University Press, 2024). Slouch examines the history of conceptions of “bad posture” as they arose over the course of the 20th century. The book is a beautiful example of taking a perhaps seemingly small topic and showing how

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64:34

Lina Pinto-García, "Maraña: War and Disease in the...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/05/31

In Maraña: War and Disease in the Jungles of Colombia (University of Chicago Press, 2025), Lina Pinto-García delves into the relationship between war and disease, focusing on Colombian armed conflict and the skin disease known as cutaneous leishmaniasis. Leishmaniasis is transmitted through the bite of female sandflies. The most common manifestation, cutaneous leishmaniasis, is neither deadly nor contagious: it affects the skin by producing lesions of varying size and shape. In Colombia, the insect

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56:14

Erica D. Lonergan and Shawn W. Lonergan, "Escalation...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/05/30

To what extent do cyberspace operations increase the risks of escalation between nation-state rivals? Scholars and practitioners have been concerned about cyber escalation for decades, but the question remains hotly debated. The issue is increasingly important for international politics as more states develop and employ offensive cyber capabilities, and as the international system is increasingly characterized by emergent multipolarity.In Escalation Dynamics in Cyberspace, Erica D. Lonergan and

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39:07

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

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

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,

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87:49

Alex Davies, "Driven: The Race to Create the...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/05/27

In Driven: The Race to Create the Autonomous Car (Simon & Schuster, 2022), Alex Davies tells the enlightening and significant story of the effort to create driverless cars and the intense competition among tech heavyweights such as Google, Uber, and Tesla to move this technology forward. Autonomous vehicles (AVs) have been one of the most hyped technologies of recent years, but early promises that they would quickly become common place have not borne fruit. Alex Davies set forth the twisted paths of

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65:27

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/05/25

This book from Cambridge University Professor Tim Minshall provides an enlightening view of how the world of manufacturing world has an immense influence on our lives. We all reside in a world of multiple manufactured products, which include our clothing, food, furniture, electronics, automobiles, and so many other products upon which we rely, including commercial aviation, pharmeceuticals, baked good, and medical devices.Nonetheless, the processes by which these items are made and enter our lives

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53:50

Empire of Gain: Inside Trump’s Billion-Dollar Crypto...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/05/23

Hosts Nina dos Santos and Owen Bennett-Jones are joined by crypto journalist Matt Binder and longtime observer of U.S. politics and policy Edward Luce to explore the staggering wealth being generated by the Trump family’s crypto empire. We also hear from Sergei Sergienko, a crypto entrepreneur who has made and lost hundreds of millions in the crypto markets. Sergei has also faced down gangsters who tried to extort his wealth—an attack that mirrors a recent spate of kidnappings and abductions of

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104:44

William F. Owen, "Euclid's Army: Preparing Land...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/05/23

Rejecting much of the conventional wisdom to what makes up a modern Army, William F. Owen's Euclid's Army: Preparing Land Forces for Warfare Today (Howgate Publishing Limited, 2025) massacres fields sacred cows to challenge many of the mainstream ideas about the future of land warfare and how it should be conducted. Based on his experience working with the British Army and industry, Owen draws the reader back to basics based on limited budgets, limited resources and an overall reduction in cost,

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50:58

Who Owns These Tools? Vauhini Vara and Aarthi Vadde (SW)

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/05/22

In an essay about her recent book Searches (Pantheon, 2025), a genre-bending chronicle of the deeply personal ways we use the internet and the uncanny ways it uses us, Vauhini Vara admits that several reviewers seemed to mistake her engagement with ChatGPT as an uncritical embrace of large language models. Enter Aarthi Vadde to talk with Vauhini about the power and the danger of digital tech and discuss to what it means to co-create with AI. Vauhini tells Aarthi and host Sarah Wasserman that at the

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54:27

From Hal to Siri: How Computers Learned to Speak

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/05/19

Today we learn how computers learned to talk with Benjamin Lindquist, a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University’s Science in Human Culture program. Ben is the author “The Art of Text to Speech,” which recently appeared in Critical Inquiry, and he’s currently writing a history of text-to-speech computing. In this conversation, we explore: the fascinating backstory to HAL 9000, the speaking computer in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: a Space Odyssey 2001’s strong influence on computer science

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59:54

Myka Tucker-Abramson, "Cartographies of Empire: The...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/05/18

The road novel is often dismissed as a mundane, nostalgic genre: Jack, Sal, and other tedious white men on the road trying to recapture an authentic youth and American past that never existed. Yet, new road novels appear every year, tackling unexpected questions and spanning new geographies, from Mexico, Brazil, Bulgaria, Palestine, Ukraine, and former-Yugoslavia. Why did the road novel emerge and why does it persist? What does it do and why has it traveled so widely? In Cartographies of Empire:

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48:29

Jacquelyn Schneider and Julia MacDonald, "The Rise of...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/05/17

The Rise of Unmanned Warfare: Origins of the Us Autonomous Military Arsenal (Oxford UP, 2023) tells the fascinating story of the people, processes, and beliefs that led to the contemporary American unmanned arsenal. It takes an expansive look at automated and autonomous technologies, from mines and torpedoes to guided bombs and missiles, satellites, and ultimately, drones. Instead of asking the question, "Why unmanned rather than manned?" the book explains why certain types of unmanned systems

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28:44

Nicole C. Nelson, "Model Behavior: Animal...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/05/16

Mice are used as model organisms across a wide range of fields in science today--but it is far from obvious how studying a mouse in a maze can help us understand human problems like alcoholism or anxiety. How do scientists convince funders, fellow scientists, the general public, and even themselves that animal experiments are a good way of producing knowledge about the genetics of human behavior? In Model Behavior: Animal Experiments, Complexity, and the Genetics of Psychiatric Disorders (U Chicago

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2,398 results

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