New Books in Science, Technology, and...
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.
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2801
Timothy Jordan, “Information Politics: Liberati...
Struggles over information in the digital era are central to Tim Jordan‘s new book, Information Politics: Liberation and Exploitation in the Digital Society (Pluto Press, 2015). The book aims to connect a critical theoretical reading of the idea of inf...
50 min
2802
Naomi S. Baron, “Words Onscreen: The Fate of Re...
Screens are ubiquitous. From the screen on a mobile, to that on a tablet, or laptop, or desktop computer, screens appear all around us, full of content both visual and text. But it is not necessarily the ubiquity of screens that has societal implicatio...
37 min
2803
Matthew M. Heaton, “Black Skin, White Coats” (O...
In Black Skin, White Coats: Nigerian Psychiatrists, Decolonization, and the Globalization of Psychiatry (Ohio University Press, 2013), Matthew M. Heaton explores changes in psychiatric theory and practice during the decolonization of European empires i...
64 min
2804
Christine L. Borgman, “Big Data, Little Data, N...
Social media and digital technology now allow researchers to collect vast amounts of a variety data quickly. This so-called “big data,” and the practices that surround its collection, is all the rage in both the media and in research circles.
35 min
2805
Thom van Dooren, “Flight Ways: Life and Loss at...
Thom van Dooren‘s new book is an absolute must-read. (I was going to qualify that with a “…for anyone who…” and realized that it really needs no qualification.) Flight Ways: Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction (Columbia University Press,
61 min
2806
Robert W. Gehl, “Reverse Engineering Social Med...
Reverse Engineering Social Media: Software, Culture, and Political Economy in New Media Capitalism (Temple University Press, 2014) by Robert Gehl (University of Utah, Department of Communication) explores the architecture and political economy of socia...
41 min
2807
Casey O’Donnell, “Developer’s Dilemma: The Secr...
In his new book, Developer’s Dilemma: The Secret World of Videogame Creators (MIT Press, 2014), Casey O’Donnell, an assistant professor in the department of Media and Information in the College of Communication Arts at Michigan State University,
39 min
2808
A. Mark Smith, “From Sight to Light: The Passag...
A. Mark Smith‘s new book is a magisterial history of optics over the course of two millennia. From Sight to Light: The Passage from Ancient to Modern Optics (University of Chicago Press, 2015) suggests that the transition from ancient toward modern opt...
60 min
2809
Nick Wilding, "Galileo's Idol: Gianfrancesco Sa...
An interview with Nick Wilding
70 min
2810
Orit Halpern, “Beautiful Data: A History of Vis...
The second half of the twentieth century saw a radical transformation in approaches to recording and displaying information. Orit Halpern‘s new book traces the emergence of the “communicative objectivity” that resulted from this shift and produced new ...
73 min
2811
Lisa Stevenson, “Life Beside Itself: Imagining ...
Lisa Stevenson‘s new book opens with two throat-singing women and one listening king. Whether we hear them sitting down to a normal night’s dinner (as the women) or stalking the pages of a short story from Italo Calvino’s Under the Jaguar Sun (as the k...
66 min
2812
Kimberly A. Hamlin, “From Eve to Evolution: Dar...
Kimberly A. Hamlin is an associate professor in American Studies and history at Miami University in Oxford Ohio. Her book from Eve to Evolution: Darwin, Science and Women’s Rights in Gilded Age in America (University of Chicago Press, 2014),
64 min
2813
Kristina Kleutghen, “Imperial Illusions: Crossi...
Kristina Kleutghen‘s beautiful new book offers a fascinating window into the culture of illusion in China in the eighteenth century and beyond. Imperial Illusions: Crossing Pictorial Boundaries in the Qing Palaces (University of Washington Press,
71 min
2814
Ann C. Pizzorusso, “Tweeting Da Vinci” (Da Vinc...
Ann C. Pizzorusso‘s new book is a wonderfully creative and gorgeously illustrated meeting of geology, art history, and Renaissance studies. Arguing that understanding Italy’s geological history can significantly inform how we see its art, literature,
67 min
2815
Matthew Stanley, “Huxley’s Church and Maxwell’s...
“Show me how it doos.” Such were the words of a young James Clerk “Dafty” Maxwell (1831-79), an inquisitive child prone to punning who grew into a renowned physicist known for his work on electromagnetism. After learning to juggle and conducting experi...
66 min
2816
Nicolas Rasmussen, “Gene Jockeys: Life Science ...
Nicolas Rasmussen‘s new book maps the intersection of biotechnology and the business world in the last decades of the twentieth century. Gene Jockeys: Life Science and the Rise of Biotech Enterprise (Johns Hopkins University Press,
63 min
2817
Karen A. Rader and Victoria E. M. Cain, “Life o...
In lucid prose that’s a real pleasure to read, Karen Rader and Victoria Cain‘s new book chronicles a revolution in modern American science education and culture. Life on Display: Revolutionizing U. S. Museums of Science & Natural History in the Twentie...
69 min
2818
Frank Pasquale, “The Black Box Society: The Sec...
Hidden algorithms make many of the decisions that affect significant areas of society: the economy, personal and organizational reputation, the promotion of information, etc. These complex formulas, or processes,
50 min
2819
Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga, “Transient Work...
Words have meaning. More specifically, the definitions attached to words shape our perspective on, and how we categorize, the things that we encounter. The words of “technology” and “innovation” are exemplars of how definitions impact perspectives.
37 min
2820
Johanna Drucker, “Graphesis: Visual Forms of Kn...
Johanna Drucker‘s marvelous new book gives us a language with which to talk about visual epistemology.Graphesis: Visual Forms of Knowledge Production (Harvard University Press, 2014) simultaneously introduces the nature and function of information grap...
64 min
2821
Daniel Margocsy, “Commercial Visions: Science, ...
Daniel Margocsy‘s beautiful new book opens with a trip to Amsterdam by Baron Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach, and closes with a shopping spree by Peter the Great. These two trips bookend a series of fascinating forays into the changing world of entrepre...
68 min
2822
Carolyn L. Kane, “Chromatic Algorithms: Synthet...
Carolyn L. Kane’s new book traces the modern history of digital color, focusing on the role of electronic color in computer art and media aesthetics since 1960. Chromatic Algorithms: Synthetic Color, Computer Art,
63 min
2823
Janet K. Shim, “Heart-Sick: The Politics of Ris...
Janet K. Shim‘s new book juxtaposes the accounts of epidemiologists and lay people to consider the roles of race, class, and gender (among other things) in health and illness. Heart-Sick: The Politics of Risk, Inequality,
74 min
2824
William J. Turkel, “Spark from the Deep” (Johns...
“In a sense, all life consists of the colonization of an electric world. But to see that, we have to go back to the very beginning.” William J. Turkel‘s new book traces the emergence and inhabiting of an electric world through the span of human history...
67 min
2825
Alon Peled, “Traversing Digital Babel: Informat...
Failure by government agencies to share information has had disastrous results globally. From the inability to prevent terrorist attacks, like the 9-11 attacks in New York City, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania,
42 min