Shows / New Books in Technology
New Books in Technology
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: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/…
Episodes
- New Books in Technology
Theodora Varbouli and Olga Touloumi, "Computer Architectures: Constructing the Common Ground" (Routledge, 2019)
Weaving together intellectual, social, cultural, and material histories, Theodora Varbouli and Olga Touloumi's book Computer Architectures: Constructing the…
- New Books in Technology
Arthur Asseraf, "Electric News in Colonial Algeria" (Oxford UP, 2019)
Arthur Asseraf’s Electric News in Colonial Algeria (Oxford University Press, 2019) examines the workings of the “news ecosystem” in Algeria from the 1880s to…
- New Books in Technology
Paul Nahin, "Hot Molecules, Cold Electrons" (Princeton UP, 2020)
Hot Molecules, Cold Electrons: From the Mathematics of Heat to the Development of the Trans-Atlantic Telegraph Cable (Princeton University Press, 2020), by…
- New Books in Technology
Matt Cook, "Sleight of Mind: 75 Ingenious Paradoxes in Mathematics, Physics, and Philosophy" (MIT Press, 2020)
Paradox is a sophisticated kind of magic trick. A magician's purpose is to create the appearance of impossibility, to pull a rabbit from an empty hat. Yet…
- New Books in Technology
Neil Selwyn, "What is Digital Sociology?" (Polity, 2019)
The rise of digital technology is transforming the world in which we live. Our digitalized societies demand new ways of thinking about the social, and this…
- New Books in Technology
Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, "Übermensch: Plädoyer Für Einen Nietzscheanischen Transhumanismus" (Schwabe, 2019)
In this episode I talk Stefan Lorenz Sorgner. Stefan teaches philosophy at John Cabot University in Rome. He is director and co-founder of the Beyond Humanism…
- New Books in Technology
Jacob Turner, "Robot Rules: Regulating Artificial Intelligence" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)
In his new book Robot Rules: Regulating Artificial Intelligence (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), Jacob Turner explains why AI is unique, what legal and ethical…
- New Books in Technology
Kate Devlin, "Turned On: Science, Sex and Robots" (Bloomsbury, 2018)
The idea of the seductive sex robot is the stuff of myth, legend and science fiction. From the ancient Greeks to twenty-first century movies, robots in human…
- New Books in Technology
Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein, "Data Feminism" (MIT Press, 2020)
The increased datafication our interactions and permeation of data science into more aspects of our lives requires analysis of the systems of power surrounding…
- New Books in Technology
Michael Rechtenwald, "Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom" (New English Review, 2019)
In his book about enormous sea changes brought about by digital technology, Michael Rectenwald begins and ends his Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and…
- New Books in Technology
David J. Gunkel, "Robot Rights" (MIT Press, 2018)
We are in the midst of a robot invasion, as devices of different configurations and capabilities slowly but surely come to take up increasingly important…
- New Books in Technology
Phillipa Chong, “Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times” (Princeton UP, 2020)
How does the world of book reviews work? In Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times (Princeton University Press, 2020), Phillipa Chong…
- New Books in Technology
Virginia Eubanks, "Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor" (St. Martin's, 2018)
The State of Indiana denies one million applications for healthcare, foodstamps and cash benefits in three years―because a new computer system interprets any…
- New Books in Technology
Angela Jones, "Camming: Money, Power, and Pleasure in the Sex Work Industry" (NYU Press, 2020)
In her new book, Camming: Money, Power, and Pleasure in the Sex Work Industry (NYU Press, 2020), Dr. Angela Jones engages readers in a five-year mixed-methods…
- New Books in Technology
Francesca Minerva, "The Ethics of Cryonics: Is It Immoral to be Immortal" (Palgrave, 2018)
Cryonics―also known as cryopreservation or cryosuspension―is the preservation of legally dead individuals at ultra-low temperatures. Those who undergo this…
- New Books in Technology
Germaine R. Halegoua, "The Digital City: Media and the Social Production of Place" (NYU Press, 2019)
In her new book, The Digital City: Media and the Social Production of Place (NYU Press, 2019), Germaine R. Halegoua rethinks everyday interactions that humans…
- New Books in Technology
Shannon Vallor, "Technology and the Virtues" (Oxford UP, 2016)
The 21st century offers a dizzying array of new technological developments: robots smart enough to take white collar jobs, social media tools that manage our…
- New Books in Technology
Russell A. Newman, "The Paradoxes of Network Neutralities" (MIT Press, 2019)
Three years after the withdrawal of the Open Internet Order – then-President Barack Obama’s attempt at codifying network neutrality by prohibiting internet…
- New Books in Technology
Allison Ochs, "Would I Have Sexted Back in the 80s?" (Amsterdam UP, 2019)
In her new books, Would I Have Sexted Back in the 80s?: A Modern Guide to Parenting Digital Teens, Derived from Lessons of the Past (Amsterdam University…
- New Books in Technology
Alexis Elder, "Friendship, Robots, and Social Media: False Friends and Second Selves" (Routledge, 2017)
Various emerging technologies, from social robotics to social media, appeal to our desire for social interactions, while avoiding some of the risks and costs…
- New Books in Technology
K. Linder et al., "Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers" (Stylus Publishing, 2020)
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. However, if…
- New Books in Technology
Nancy D. Campbell, "OD: Naloxone and the Politics of Overdose" (MIT Press, 2020)
For years, drug overdose was unmentionable in polite society. OD was understood to be something that took place in dark alleys―an ugly death awaiting social…
- New Books in Technology
Brett Frischmann and Evan Selinger, "Re-Engineering Humanity" (Cambridge UP, 2018)
Every day, new warnings emerge about artificial intelligence rebelling against us. All the while, a more immediate dilemma flies under the radar. Have forces…
- New Books in Technology
Ben Green, "The Smart Enough City: Putting Technology in its Place to Reclaim Our Urban Future" (MIT Press, 2019)
The “smart city,” presented as the ideal, efficient, and effective for meting out services, has capture the imaginations of policymakers, scholars, and…
- New Books in Technology
James Schwartz, "The Ethics of Space Exploration" (Springer, 2016)
The Ethics of Space Exploration (Springer, 2016), edited by James S. J. Schwartz and Tony Milligan, aims to contribute significantly to the understanding of…
- New Books in Technology
Neil McArthur, "Robot Sex: Social and Ethical Implications" (MIT Press, 2017)
Sexbots are coming. Given the pace of technological advances, it is inevitable that realistic robots specifically designed for people's sexual gratification…
- New Books in Technology
John Danaher, "Automation and Utopia: Human Flourishing in a World without Work" (Harvard UP, 2019)
The future is a constant focus of anxiety, and we are all familiar with the pressures that come distinctively from automation – the transformation by which…
- New Books in Technology
Angelina Callahan, "NASA in the World: Fifty Years of International Collaboration in Space" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)
Angelina Callahan talks about the Naval Research Laboratory’s Vanguard Project. While the launch of Vanguard 1 in 1958 was part of the Cold War “Space Race,”…
- New Books in Technology
Evan Friss, "On Bicycles: A 200-Year History of Cycling in New York City" (Columbia UP, 2019)
Evan Friss, an associate professor of history at James Madison University, historicizes the bicycle’s place in New York City’s social, economic…
- New Books in Technology
Phoebe Moore, "The Quantified Self in Precarity: Work, Technology and What Counts" (Routledge, 2017)
Humans are accustomed to being tool bearers, but what happens when machines become tool bearers, calculating human labour via the use of big data and people…
- New Books in Technology
Steve Fuller, "The Proactionary Imperative: A Foundation for Transhumanism" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)
Steve Fuller and Veronika Lipinska's The Proactionary Imperative: A Foundation for Transhumanism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) debates the concept of transforming…
- New Books in Technology
Laura Cabrera, "Rethinking Human Enhancement: Social Enhancement and Emergent Technologies" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)
In Rethinking Human Enhancement: Social Enhancement and Emergent Technologies (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), Laura Cabrera discusses three possible human…
- New Books in Technology
E. Jones-Imhotep and T. Adcock, "Made Modern: Science and Technology in Canadian History" (UBC Press, 2018)
Science and technology have shaped not only economic empires and industrial landscapes, but also the identities, anxieties, and understandings of people living…
- New Books in Technology
Audrey Kurth Cronin, "Power to the People: How Open Technological Innovation is Arming Tomorrow’s Terrorists" (Oxford UP, 2019)
Never have so many possessed the means to be so lethal. The diffusion of modern technology (robotics, cyber weapons, 3-D printing, autonomous systems, and…
- New Books in Technology
Deborah Lupton, "The Quantified Self" (Polity, 2016)
With the advent of digital devices and software, self-tracking practices have gained new adherents and have spread into a wide array of social domains. The…
- New Books in Technology
Lundy Braun, "Breathing Race into the Machine" (U Minnesota Press, 2014)
“We cannot get answers to questions that cannot be asked.” Lundy Braun’s influential book, Breathing Race into the Machine: The Surprising Career of the…
- New Books in Technology
Alberto Cairo, "How Charts Lie: Getting Smarter about Visual Information" (Norton, 2019)
We’ve all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, but what if we don’t understand what we’re looking at? Social media has made charts, infographics…
- New Books in Technology
Nir Eyal, "Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life" (Bloomsbury, 2019)
A former advisor to tech companies on how to make their products habit-forming, Nir Eyal found that his own smartphone use was adversely affecting his family…
- New Books in Technology
Ruha Benjamin, "Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code" (Polity, 2019)
From everyday apps to complex algorithms, Ruha Benjamin cuts through tech-industry hype to understand how emerging technologies can reinforce White supremacy…
- New Books in Technology
J. Yates and C. N. Murphy, "Engineering Rules: Global Standard Setting since 1880" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2019)
Standards are crucial to the way we live—just look around you. A no. 2 pencil, perhaps? That arrived in an 8x8.5x20 shipping container? Standards allow your…
- New Books in Technology
Jonathan Rees, "Before the Refrigerator: How We Used to Get Ice" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2018)
Frederic Tudor was the “Ice King” of early nineteenth-century America. It was Tudor who realized that ice, harvested from New England ponds and rivers could be…
- New Books in Technology
Margaret E. Schotte, "Sailing School: Navigating Science and Skill, 1550-1800" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2019)
Throughout the Age of Exploration, European maritime communities bent on colonial and commercial expansion embraced the complex mechanics of celestial…
- New Books in Technology
Kathryn Conrad on University Press Publishing
As you may know, university presses publish a lot of good books. In fact, they publish thousands of them every year. They are different from most trade books…
- New Books in Technology
Elisabeth Köll, "Railroads and the Transformation of China" (Harvard UP, 2019)
Railroads and the Transformation of China (Harvard University Press, 2019) looks at the development of railroads in China from the late 19th century to the…
- New Books in Technology
J. Neuhaus, "Geeky Pedagogy: A Guide for Intellectuals, Introverts, and Nerds Who Want to Be Effective Teachers" (West Virginia UP, 2019)
The things that make people academics -- as deep fascination with some arcane subject, often bordering on obsession, and a comfort with the solitude that…
- New Books in Technology
Donna Dickenson, "Me Medicine vs. We Medicine: Reclaiming Biotechnology for the Common Good" (Columbia UP, 2016)
Personalized healthcare―or what the award-winning author Donna Dickenson calls "Me Medicine"―is radically transforming our longstanding "one-size-fits-all"…
- New Books in Technology
David Beer, “The Data Gaze: Capitalism, Power and Perception“ (Sage, 2019)
What is the social role of data? In The Data Gaze: Capitalism, Power and Perception (Sage, 2019), David Beer, a professor of sociology at the University of…
- New Books in Technology
Kerim Yasar, "Electrified Voices: How the Telephone, Phonograph, and Radio Shaped Modern Japan, 1868-1945" (Columbia UP, 2018)
Electrified Voices: How the Telephone, Phonograph, and Radio Shaped Modern Japan, 1868-1945 (Columbia UP, 2018) explores the soundscapes of modernity in Japan…
- New Books in Technology
Gökçe Günel, "Spaceship in the Desert: Energy, Climate Change, and Urban Design in Abu Dhabi" (Duke UP, 2019)
Whether in space colonies or through geo-engineering, the looming disaster of climate change inspires no shortage of techno-utopian visions of human survival…
- New Books in Technology
Martin Collins, "A Telephone for the World: Motorola, Iridium, and the Making of a Global Age" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2018)
It’s easy to take for granted that one can pick up a cell phone and call someone on the other side of the planet. But, until very recently, this had been a…
- New Books in Technology
Eric Topol, "Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again" (Basic Books, 2019)
Medicine has lost its humanity. Doctors no longer have the time to make personal connections with their patients. In his new book Deep Medicine: How Artificial…
- New Books in Technology
Chris Bernhardt, "Quantum Computing for Everyone" (MIT Press, 2019)
Today I talked with Chris Bernhardt about his book Quantum Computing for Everyone (MIT Press, 2019). This is a book that involves a lot of mathematics, but…
- New Books in Technology
Crystal Abidin, "Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame Online" (Emerald Publishing, 2018)
What does it mean to be famous on the Internet? How do people become Internet celebrities, and what can that celebrity be used to do? Dr. Crystal Abidin offers…
- New Books in Technology
Christopher Preston, "The Synthetic Age: Outdesigning Evolution, Resurrecting Species, and Reengineering Our World" (MIT Press, 2018)
In The Synthetic Age: Outdesigning Evolution, Resurrecting Species, and Reengineering Our World (MIT Press, 2018), Dr. Christopher Preston argues that what is…
- New Books in Technology
Tom Wheeler, "From Gutenberg to Google: The History of Our Future" (Brookings, 2019)
It's easy to get sidetracked while writing a book. But imagine being interrupted by the President of the United States. That happened to Tom Wheeler, who was…
- New Books in Technology
Discussion of Massive Online Peer Review and Open Access Publishing
In the information age, knowledge is power. Hence, facilitating the access to knowledge to wider publics empowers citizens and makes societies more democratic…
- New Books in Technology
Kartik Hosanagar, "A Human’s Guide to Machine Intelligence: How Algorithms Are Shaping Our Lives" (Viking, 2019)
Our guest today is Kartik Hosanagar, the author of A Human’s Guide to Machine Intelligence: How Algorithms Are Shaping Our Lives and How We Can Stay in…
- New Books in Technology
James Schwoch, "Wired into Nature: The Telegraph and the North American Frontier" (U Illinois Press, 2018)
It's been called the first Internet. In the nineteenth century, the telegraph spun a world wide web of cables and poles, carrying electronic signals with…
- New Books in Technology
Joy Lisi Rankin, "A People’s History of Computing in the United States" (Harvard UP, 2018).
We know, perhaps too well, the innovation-centric history of personal computing. Yet, computer users were not necessarily microelectronics consumers from the…
- New Books in Technology
Adrienne Mayor, "Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology" (Princeton UP, 2018)
The first robot to walk the earth was a bronze giant called Talos. This wondrous machine was created not by the MIT Robotics Lab, but by Hephaestus, the Greek…