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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

58:47

Ray Brescia, "The Private Is Political: Identity and...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/02/17

As Americans increasingly depend upon their phones, computers, and internet resources, their actions are less private than they believe. Data is routinely sold and shared with companies who want to sell something, political actors who want to analyze behavior, and law enforcement who seek to monitor and limit actions. In The Private is Political: Identity and Democracy in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism (NYU Press, 2025), law professor Ray Brescia explores the failure of existing legal systems

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66:58

Jessica A. Brockmole, "Pink Cars and Pocketbooks: How...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/02/16

Since the commercial introduction of the automobile, US automakers have always sought women as customers and advertised accordingly. How, then, did car culture become so masculine? In Pink Cars and Pocketbooks: How American Women Bought Their Way into the Driver's Seat (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2025), Dr. Jessica Brockmole shares the untold history of women's relationship with automobiles: a journey marked by struggle, empowerment, and the relentless pursuit of independence.This

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49:00

Luiz Valério P. Trindade, "Hate Speech and Abusive...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/02/15

The pernicious social impact of social media platforms is a matter of global concern, as this digital technology has become a breeding ground for the proliferation of various forms of online harassment and abuse.However, the majority of studies exploring this phenomenon have been conducted in Anglophone social contexts (particularly the US and UK). In light of this imbalance, in Hate speech and abusive behaviour on social media: A cross-cultural perspective (Vernon Press, 2024), Luiz Valério

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41:43

Xiangli Ding, "Hydropower Nation: Dams, Energy, and...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/02/15

As a rising infrastructure powerhouse, China has the largest electricity generation capacity in the world today. Its number of large dams is second to none. In Hydropower Nation: Dams, Energy, and Political Changes in Twentieth-Century China (Cambridge UP, 2024), Xiangli Ding provides a historical understanding of China's ever-growing energy demands and how they have affected its rivers, wild species, and millions of residents. River management has been an essential state responsibility throughout

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45:47

Peter Burke, "Ignorance: A Global History" (Yale UP,...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/02/14

Throughout history, every age has thought of itself as more knowledgeable than the last. Renaissance humanists viewed the Middle Ages as an era of darkness, Enlightenment thinkers tried to sweep superstition away with reason, the modern welfare state sought to slay the “giant” of ignorance, and in today’s hyperconnected world seemingly limitless information is available on demand. But what about the knowledge lost over the centuries? Are we really any less ignorant than our ancestors? In Ignorance:

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47:01

Brain Rot: What Screens Are Doing to Our Minds (2)

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/02/13

“Brain Rot,” the 2024 Oxford word of the year captures the essence of our new podcast that is being created as a special series on the New Books Network (NBN). The full title is “Brain Rot: What Our Screens Are Doing to Our Minds.” In this second podcast Dr. Karyne Messina, a psychologist, psychoanalyst, author and NBN host discusses the problems the emerge when children watch screens and digital devices too much. Dr. Messina talked about this topic with Dr. Harry Gill, a well-known psychiatrist who

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59:39

Shoumita Dasgupta, "Where Biology Ends and Bias...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/02/10

Dr. Dasgupta is a geneticist and internationally recognized anti-racism educator. In this book, she provides a powerful, science-based rebuttal to common fallacies about human difference. Well-meaning physicians, parents, and even scientists today often spread misinformation about what biology can and can’t tell us about our bodies, minds, and identities. In this accessible, myth-busting book, Dr. Dasgupta draws on the latest science to correct common misconceptions about how much of our social

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86:48

Gabriella Coleman on Hackers Cultures (Plural!)

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/02/10

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, and guest host, Paula Bialski, Associate Professor for Digital Sociology at the University of St. Gallen in St. Gallen, Switzerland, interview Gabriella Coleman, Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University, about her long career studying hacker cultures. Topics include how hacking has changed over time, the different colored “hats” used to describe different hacker ethoses, the aesthetic dimensions of hacking including how poorly written code leads to moral

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42:34

Astrid J. Smith, "Transmediation and the Archive:...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/02/10

Building on the field of modern archival practice, Transmediation and the Archive: Decoding Objects in the Digital Age (ARC Humanities Press, 2024) explores the possibilities of archival objects. Investigating material as diverse as early modern printed books, death masks, a spirit photograph, and a manuscript choir book, Astrid J. Smith interrogates not only what the objects are now, but also asks what they were before taking material form, and what they can become as their format is transferred to

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65:53

Our History with AI is (much) Longer than You Think...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/02/08

It’s the UConn Popcast, and when did we really start dreaming about the promise, and the danger, of artificial intelligence? When ChatGPT was released in 2022? When IBMs Deep Blue defeated Chess world champion Garry Kasparov in 1997? When Stanley Kubrick introduced us to HAL 9000 in 1968? Or perhaps you think it was much earlier. Maybe we have had the dream of AI since the development of the first computers by Von Neumann, or even earlier, by Babbage. Or maybe you think the dawning of the age of

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59:34

Daniel Oberhaus, "The Silicon Shrink: How Artificial...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/02/04

AI psychiatrists promise to detect mental disorders with superhuman accuracy, provide affordable therapy for those who can't afford or can't access treatment, and even invent new psychiatric drugs. But the hype obscures an unnerving reality. In The Silicon Shrink: How Artificial Intelligence Made the World an Asylum (MIT Press, 2025), Daniel Oberhaus tells the inside story of how the quest to use AI in psychiatry has created the conditions to turn the world into an asylum. Most of these systems, he

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55:43

Marijam Did, "Everything to Play For: An Insider's...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/02/03

Everything to Play For: How Videogames Are Changing the World (Verso, 2024) by Marijiam Did asks if videogames can achieve egalitarian goals instead of fuelling hyper-materialist, reactionary agendas. Combining cultural theory and materialist critiques with accessible language and personal anecdotes, industry insider Marijam Did engages both novices and seasoned connoisseurs. From the innovations of Pong and Doom to the intricate multiplayer or narrative-driven games, the author highlights the

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65:47

Mirca Madianou, "Technocolonialism: When Technology...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/02/01

With over 300 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, and with emergencies and climate disasters becoming more common, AI and big data are being championed as forces for good and as solutions to the complex challenges of the aid sector.Technocolonialism: When Technology for Good is Harmful (Polity, 2024) argues, however, that digital innovation engenders new forms of violence and entrenches power asymmetries between the global South and North. Dr. Madianou develops a new concept,

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55:32

Antonio A. Casilli, "Waiting for Robots: The Hired...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/01/31

Artificial Intelligence fuels both enthusiasm and panic. Technologists are inclined to give their creations leeway, pretend they’re animated beings, and consider them efficient. As users, we may complain when these technologies don’t obey, or worry about their influence on our choices and our livelihoods. And yet, we also yearn for their convenience, see ourselves reflected in them, and treat them as something entirely new. But when we overestimate the automation of these tools, award-winning author

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56:00

Understanding Disinformation

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/01/30

How do we discern what is factual from what isn’t? In this episode, Dr. Colleen Sinclair joins us to discuss the functions of disinformation, and to unpack how our own biases, emotions and vulnerabilities influence what we are willing to believe. Our guest is: Dr. H. Colleen Sinclair, Associate Research Professor of Social Psychology at Louisiana State University. She takes a theory-grounded, multi-method approach to tackling social issues. She works on: understanding the hazards of the information

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84:22

A.I. is Spielberg & Kubrick’s Dark Twisted Fantasy

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/01/28

It’s the UConn Popcast, and A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Steven Spielberg’s 2001 movie, is a strange and profound text on human-AI relations. Centering on David, an artificial child who is embraced and then abandoned by his adoptive human mother, the movie has the structure of a fairy tale and the sensibility of a horror film. We found the text to have significant things to say about the ethics of creating, and rejecting, artificial life, as well as functioning as something of a meta-commentary on

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10:50

Karenleigh A. Overmann, "The Material Origin of...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/01/28

What are numbers, and where do they come from? Based on her groundbreaking study of material devices used for counting in the Ancient Near East, Karenleigh Overmann proposes a novel answer to these timeless questions. Tune in as we talk with Karenleigh Overmann about her book, The Material Origin of Numbers: Insights from the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (Gorgias Press, 2024). Karenleigh Overmann earned a doctorate in archaeology from the University of Oxford, and is research fellow at the

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79:35

Marshall Poe on the New Books Network, Technology,...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/01/27

Peoples and Things host, Lee Vinsel, is joined by guest host and Peoples & Things producer, Joe Forte, Media Projects Manager with Virginia Tech Publishing, in interviewing Marshall Poe, the founder and editor of the New Books Network, the largest academic podcasting platform in the world. The trio discuss how the New Books Network came to be; how digital technologies open up new tools for academic work; changing media landscapes, including the recent bursting of a podcasting bubble; and the future

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74:47

James Boyle, "The Line: AI and the Future of...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/01/27

This conversation includes James Boyle, Duke University; Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera, UPR-M; Héctor José Huyke, UPR-M, and Natalia Bustos, UPR-M. This is the first of two episodes about The Line: AI and the Future of Personhood. The second, in Spanish, will appear on the New Books Network en español. The series is sponsored by the Encuentros descoloniales focal group at Instituto Nuevos Horizontes at UPRM, a group of scholars who consider how decolonial approaches can provide nuance in scientific

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50:17

Dario Fazzi, "Smoke on the Water: Incineration at Sea...

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society ·

2025/01/26

The U.S. government, military, and industry once saw ocean incineration as the safest and most efficient way to dispose of hazardous chemical waste. Beginning in the late 1960s, toxic chemicals such as PCBs and other harmful industrial byproducts were taken out to sea to be destroyed in specially designed ships equipped with high-temperature combustion chambers and smokestacks. But public outcry arose after the environmental and health risks of ocean incineration were exposed, and the practice was

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2,398 results

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