New Books in Science, Technology, and...

Interviews with Scholars of Science, Technology, and Society about their New Books

Science
Social Sciences
2001
Alistair Sponsel, "Darwin’s Evolving Identity: ...
Dr. Alistair Sponsel talks about Darwin’s experiences on HMS Beagle and his early career as a naturalist...
33 min
2002
Francesca Minerva, "The Ethics of Cryonics: Is ...
Minerva discusses the moral concerns of cryonics...
57 min
2003
Germaine R. Halegoua, "The Digital City: Media ...
Halegoua rethinks everyday interactions that humans have with digital infrastructures, navigation technologies, and social media as we move through the world...
51 min
2004
Gil Eyal, "The Crisis of Expertise" (Polity, 2019)
Eyal argues that what needs to be explained is not a one-sided “mistrust of experts” but the two-headed pushmi-pullyu of unprecedented reliance on science and expertise, on the one hand, coupled with increased skepticism and dismissal of scientific findings and expert opinion, on the other...
63 min
2005
Michael F. Robinson, "The Coldest Crucible: Arc...
The disappearance of the Franklin Expedition in 1845 turned the Arctic into an object of fascination...
36 min
2006
Shannon Vallor, "Technology and the Virtues" (O...
How can we possibly improve the chances that the human family will not only live, but live well, into the 21st century and beyond?
71 min
2007
Kyle Devine, "Decomposed: The Political Ecology...
What is the human and environmental cost of music?
40 min
2008
Russell A. Newman, "The Paradoxes of Network Ne...
Newman sets out to provide an explication of the debates surrounding network neutrality...
39 min
2009
Catherine Newell, "Destined for the Stars: Fait...
Catherine Newell talks about the religious roots of the final frontier, focusing on the collaboration of artist Chesley Bonestell, science writer Willy Ley, and the NASA rocket engineer Wernher von Braun...
35 min
2010
Allison Ochs, "Would I Have Sexted Back in the ...
Ochs combines experiences from her childhood with her research and expertise on teens and teen culture to write about experiences of teens and parents in navigating smartphones and increasing access to digital spaces...
64 min
2011
K. Linder et al., "Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alt...
If you’re a grad student facing the ugly reality of finding a tenure-track job, you could easily be forgiven for thinking about a career change...
36 min
2012
Alexis Elder, "Friendship, Robots, and Social M...
Can robots be our friends?
70 min
2013
Christopher J. Phillips, "Scouting and Scoring:...
Phillips crafts a compelling narrative sure to delight baseball fans and historians of the human sciences alike...
43 min
2014
Neil Maher, "Apollo in the Age of Aquarius" (Ha...
Neil Maher talks about the social forces that shaped NASA in the 1960s and 70s, connecting the space race with the radical upheavals of the counterculture...
30 min
2015
Nancy D. Campbell, "OD: Naloxone and the Politi...
Over the last several years, overdose prevention has become the unlikely object of a social movement, powered by the miracle drug naloxone...
37 min
2016
Brett Frischmann and Evan Selinger, "Re-Enginee...
Every day, new warnings emerge about artificial intelligence rebelling against us.,,
86 min
2017
Safi Bahcall, "Loonshots: How to Nurture the Cr...
Bahcall reveals a surprising new way of thinking about the mysteries of group behavior that challenges everything we thought we knew about nurturing radical breakthroughs...
55 min
2018
J. L. Anderson, "Capitalist Pigs: Pigs, Pork, a...
Anderson provides a history of pigs in America from the first arrival on the continent in the Columbian Exchange to the modern agribusiness of pork production...
55 min
2019
Ben Green, "The Smart Enough City: Putting Tech...
The “smart city,” presented as the ideal, efficient, and effective for meting out services, has capture the imaginations of policymakers, scholars, and urban-dweller. But what are the possible drawbacks of living in an environment that is constantly collecting data?
31 min
2020
Daniel Kennefick, "No Shadow of Doubt: The 1919...
Daniel Kennefick talks about resistance to relativity theory in the early twentieth century and the huge challenges that faced British astronomers who wanted to test the theory during the solar eclipse of 1919...
36 min
2021
James Schwartz, "The Ethics of Space Exploratio...
This book aims to contribute significantly to the understanding of issues of value which repeatedly emerge in interdisciplinary discussions on space and society...
64 min
2022
Jessica Lynne Pearson, "The Colonial Politics o...
Pearson recounts France’s collision with the UN and World Health Organization in the immediate post-World War II years...
45 min
2023
Rachel Louise Moran, "Governing Bodies: America...
How did the modern, American body come into being?
47 min
2024
Alice Hill, "Building a Resilient Tomorrow: How...
Hill and Martinez-Diaz draw on their personal experiences as senior officials in the Obama Administration to tell behind-the-scenes stories of what it really takes to advance progress on climate change issues...
41 min
2025
Neil McArthur, "Robot Sex: Social and Ethical I...
Sexbots are coming...
68 min