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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
The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking
For many, technology offers hope for the future―that promise of shared human flourishing and liberation that always seems to elude our species. Artificial…
- New Books in Technology
Sex and Love with Robots and Chatbots
It’s the UConn Popcast, and can you fall in love with ChatGPT? Can, and should, you have sex with a robot? We asked Professor Kate Devlin, a leading researcher…
- New Books in Technology
Chris Skinner, "Intelligent Money: When Money Thinks for You" (Marshall Cavendish, 2024)
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See…
- New Books in Technology
The Audiobook's Century-Long Overnight Success
Today we present the first episode of a miniseries on audiobooks by getting into the history and theory of the medium. Audiobooks are having a moment—and it…
- New Books in Technology
Eleni Kalantidou on Design, Repairability, and Cultures of Repair
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Eleni Kalantidou, Assistant Professor at the Queensland College of Art and Design, about the volume of essays…
- New Books in Technology
Lessons on Living with AI from the Home Computer Revolution: Revisiting Sherry Turkle’s “The Second Self”
It’s the UConn Popcast, and we've been experiencing a revolution in the past few years, as artificial intelligence becomes an increasingly common part of…
- New Books in Technology
Jeremy Black, "A History of the Railroad in 100 Maps" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
Since their origins in eighteenth-century England, railroads have spread across the globe, changing everything in their path, from where and how people grew…
- New Books in Technology
Luis F. Alvarez Leon, "The Map in the Machine: Charting the Spatial Architecture of Digital Capitalism" (U California Press, 2024)
Digital technologies have changed how we shop, work, play, and communicate, reshaping our societies and economies. To understand digital capitalism, we need to…
- New Books in Technology
Daniel J. Solove, "On Privacy and Technology" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Succinct and eloquent, On Privacy and Technology (Oxford UP, 2025) is an essential primer on how to face the threats to privacy in today's age of digital…
- New Books in Technology
Eric Dienstfrey, "Making Stereo Fit: The History of a Disquieting Film Technology" (U California Press, 2024)
Surround sound is often mistaken as a relatively new phenomenon in cinemas, one that emerged in the 1970s with the arrival of Dolby. Making Stereo Fit: The…
- New Books in Technology
Sonic AI
Today we hear two scholars reading their recent work on artificial intelligence. Steph Ceraso studies the technology of “voice donation,” which provides…
- New Books in Technology
Webb Keane, "Animals, Robots, Gods: Adventures in the Moral Imagination" (Princeton UP, 2025)
Revolutions in technology are fundamentally transforming what it means to be human. Or are they? As Webb Keane points out, before humans consulted ChatGPT…
- New Books in Technology
Christos Lynteris, "Visual Plague: The Emergence of Epidemic Photography" (MIT Press, 2022)
How epidemic photography during a global pandemic of bubonic plague contributed to the development of modern epidemiology and our concept of the “pandemic.”In…
- New Books in Technology
Sam Srauy, "Race, Culture and the Video Game Industry: A Vicious Circuit" (Routledge, 2024)
My guest today Sam Srauy is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, Journalism, and Public Relations at Oakland University, Her research…
- New Books in Technology
The Internet, Power, and the Deep State: Zeynep Tufekci on Technology and Democracy Today
As the second Trump administration reshapes the U.S. government and its role in the world, how do technology, media, and political power intersect? In this…
- New Books in Technology
Aure Schrock on Politics Recoded: The Infrastructural Organizing of Code for America
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Aure Schrock, an interdisciplinary technology scholar and writing coach and editor at Indelible Voice, about…
- New Books in Technology
Peter D. Hershock, "Buddhism and Intelligent Technology: Toward a More Humane Future" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
Machine learning, big data and AI are reshaping the human experience and forcing us to develop a new ethical intelligence. In Buddhism and Intelligent…
- New Books in Technology
Nicole Lobdell, "X-Ray" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
X-rays are powerful. Moving through objects undetected, revealing the body as a tryptic of skin, tissue, and bone. X-rays gave rise to a transparent world and…
- New Books in Technology
Gabriella Coleman on Hackers Cultures (Plural!)
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, and guest host, Paula Bialski, Associate Professor for Digital Sociology at the University of St. Gallen in St. Gallen…
- New Books in Technology
Our History with AI is (much) Longer than You Think (with Kevin LaGrandeur)
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?…
- New Books in Technology
Daniel Oberhaus, "The Silicon Shrink: How Artificial Intelligence Made the World an Asylum" (MIT Press, 2025)
AI psychiatrists promise to detect mental disorders with superhuman accuracy, provide affordable therapy for those who can't afford or can't access treatment…
- New Books in Technology
Marijam Did, "Everything to Play For: An Insider's Guide to How Videogames are Changing Our World" (Verso, 2024)
Everything to Play For: How Videogames Are Changing the World (Verso, 2024) by Marijiam Did asks if videogames can achieve egalitarian goals instead of…
- New Books in Technology
Mirca Madianou, "Technocolonialism: When Technology for Good is Harmful" (Polity, 2024)
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…
- New Books in Technology
Antonio A. Casilli, "Waiting for Robots: The Hired Hands of Automation" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
Artificial Intelligence fuels both enthusiasm and panic. Technologists are inclined to give their creations leeway, pretend they’re animated beings, and…
- New Books in Technology
Karenleigh A. Overmann, "The Material Origin of Numbers: Insights from the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East" (Gorgias Press, 2024)
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…
- New Books in Technology
James Boyle, "The Line: AI and the Future of Personhood" (MIT Press, 2024)
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…
- New Books in Technology
Marshall Poe on the New Books Network, Technology, and the Future of Academic Communication
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…
- New Books in Technology
Michael Tondre, "Oil" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
Black gold. Liquid sunlight. Texas tea. Oil remains the ur-commodity of our global era, having been distilled from ancient algae and marine life to turn…
- New Books in Technology
Listening in the Afterlife of Data
If you walk into David Cecchetto‘s classroom, you might find people wearing audio devices that simulate hearing with a thousand-foot wide head. Or gadgets that…
- New Books in Technology
Special Episode: Mike Secasas on the Question of the Human, and the Question of Technology, Live at the Bradley Study Center
This special episode features a discussion between Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, and Michael Sacasas, author of The Convivial Society substack newsletter…
- New Books in Technology
Elizabeth King and W. David Todd, "Miracles and Machines: A Sixteenth-Century Automaton and Its Legend" (Getty, 2023)
Miracles and Machines: A Sixteenth-Century Automaton and Its Legend (Getty Publications, 2023) tells the singular story of an uncanny, rare object at the cusp…
- New Books in Technology
Jesper Juul, "Too Much Fun: The Five Lives of the Commodore 64 Computer" (MIT Press, 2024)
The surprising history of the Commodore 64, the best-selling home computer of the 1980s—the machine that taught the world that computing should be fun.The…
- New Books in Technology
James Malazita, "Enacting Platforms: Feminist Technoscience and the Unreal Engine" (MIT Press, 2024)
An analysis of the game engine Unreal through feminist, race, and queer theories of technology and media, as well as a critique of the platform studies…
- New Books in Technology
What Ex Machina Tell Us About Human-AI Psychology
It’s the UConn Popcast, and Ex Machina, Alex Garland’s 2014 sci fi movie, is a provocative examination of what an updated Turing test for a super-capable AI…
- New Books in Technology
Fionna S. Cunningham, "Under the Nuclear Shadow: China's Information-Age Weapons in International Security" (Princeton UP, 2024)
How can states use military force to achieve their political aims without triggering a catastrophic nuclear war? Among the states facing this dilemma of…
- New Books in Technology
Why Teachers Turn to AI
In this episode of the Language on the Move podcast, Brynn Quick speaks with Dr. Sue Ollerhead. Dr. Ollerhead is currently a Senior Lecturer in Languages and…
- New Books in Technology
Joshua Brinkman on American Farming Culture and the History of Technology
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Joshua Brinkman, Assistant Teaching Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at North Carolina State…
- New Books in Technology
Jean Burgess and Nancy K. Baym, "Twitter: A Biography" (NYU Press, 2020)
As Twitter enters its own adolescence, both the users and the creators of this famous social media platform find themselves engaging with a tool that certainly…
- New Books in Technology
AI: How We Got Here in Three Powerful Tales
This episode is based upon three readings: Alan Turing’s Computing Machinery and Intelligence aka The Turing Test paper. Turing starts his paper by asking “can…
- New Books in Technology
Matt Beane, "The Skill Code: How to Save Human Ability in an Age of Intelligent Machines" (HarperCollins, 2024)
As part of our informal series on artificial intelligence, Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Matt Beane, Assistant Professor of Technology…
- New Books in Technology
Lindsay Weinberg, "Smart University: Student Surveillance in the Digital Age" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024)
In Smart University: Student Surveillance in the Digital Age (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024), Lindsay Weinberg evaluates how this latest era of tech…
- New Books in Technology
Ulises Ali Mejias and Nick Couldry, "Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech and How to Fight Back" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
In the present day, Big Tech is extracting resources from us, transferring and centralizing resources from people to companies. These companies are grabbing…
- New Books in Technology
Tom Boellstorff and Braxton Soderman, "Intellivision: How a Videogame System Battled Atari and Almost Bankrupted Barbie®" (MIT Press, 2024)
The engaging story of Intellivision, an overlooked videogame system from the late 1970s and early 1980s whose fate was shaped by Mattel, Atari, and countless…
- New Books in Technology
Reem Hilu, "Digitizing Domesticity in the 1980s: The Intimate Life of Computers" (U Minnesota Press, 2024)
Digitizing Domesticity in the 1980s: The Intimate Life of Computers (U Minnesota Press, 2024) shows how the widespread introduction of home computers in the…
New Books in TechnologyBug
In this episode of High Theory, Marcello Vitali-Rosati tells us about bugs! A bug can be a small insect, an illness, a spy device, or a digital malfunction…
- New Books in Technology
Ken Wilcox, "The China Business Conundrum: Ensure That "Win-Win" Doesn't Mean Western Companies Lose Twice" (John Wiley & Sons, 2024)
The China Business Conundrum: Ensure That "Win-Win" Doesn't Mean Western Companies Lose Twice (Wiley, 2024) describes former CEO of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB)…
- New Books in Technology
Fiona Smyth, "Pistols in St Paul's: Science, Music, and Architecture in the Twentieth Century" (Manchester UP, 2024)
On a winter's night in 1951, shortly after Evensong, the interior of St Paul's Cathedral echoed with gunfire. This was no act of violence but a scientific…
- New Books in Technology
Robin Phillips and Joshua Pauling, "Are We All Cyborgs Now?: Reclaiming Our Humanity from the Machine" (Basilian Media, 2024)
All We All Cyborgs Now? (Basilian Media, 2024) is a series of 32 short essay-length reflections on "Reclaiming Our Humanity from the Machine." Now is an…
- New Books in Technology
Victor P. Petrov, "Balkan Cyberia: Cold War Computing, Bulgarian Modernization, and the Information Age Behind the Iron Curtain" (MIT Press, 2023)
Balkan Cyberia: Cold War Computing, Bulgarian Modernisation, and the Information Age Behind the Iron Curtain (MIT Press, 2023) examines the history of the…
- New Books in Technology
Lizhi Liu, "From Click to Boom: The Political Economy of E-Commerce in China" (Princeton UP, 2024)
How do states build vital institutions for market development? Too often, governments confront technical or political barriers to providing the rule of law…
- New Books in Technology
Tim Harris, "In Pursuit of Unicorns: A Journey Through 50 Years of Biotechnology" (Cold Springs Harbor, 2024)
Modern biotechnology--genetic engineering and cell manipulation--originated with the 1973 demonstration that genes from different organisms could be recombined…
- New Books in Technology
Libuse Hannah Veprek, "At the Edge of AI: Human Computation Systems and Their Intraverting Relations" (Transcript, 2024)
How are human computation systems developed in the field of citizen science to achieve what neither humans nor computers can do alone? In At the Edge of AI…
- New Books in Technology
Jerry Brotton, "Four Points of the Compass: The Unexpected History of Direction" (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2024)
North, south, east and west: almost all societies use the four cardinal directions to orientate themselves, to understand who they are by projecting where they…
- New Books in Technology
Salem Elzway and Jason Resnikoff on Automation
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Salem Elzway, postdoctoral fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at University of Southern…
- New Books in Technology
Thinking Machines: The First AI Takeover Story
It’s the UConn Popcast, and in the second of our series on Thinking Machines we consider Karel Čapek’s “Rossum’s Universal Robots” (1920). Čapek’s play…
- New Books in Technology
Jamie Hakim, "Digital Intimacies: Queer Men and Smartphones in Times of Crisis" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
Queer men's cultures of intimacy have long been sites of fierce contestation. Indeed, debates have raged for decades over issues such as monogamy, safer sex…
- New Books in Technology
When We Prioritize Data and Metrics, What Happens to Human Connections?
Today’s book is: The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World (Princeton University Press, 2024), by Dr. Allison Pugh, which explores the…
- New Books in Technology
Greg Epstein, "Tech Agnostic: How Technology Became the World's Most Powerful Religion, and Why It Desperately Needs a Reformation" (MIT Press, 2024)
Technology has surpassed religion as the central focus of our lives, from our dependence on smartphones to the way that tech has infused almost every aspect of…
- New Books in Technology
Ian Milligan, "Averting the Digital Dark Age: How Archivists, Librarians, and Technologists Built the Web a Memory" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024)
In early 1996, the web was ephemeral. But by 2001, the internet was forever. How did websites transform from having a brief life to becoming long-lasting?…
- New Books in Technology
Bob Frishman, "Edward Duffield: Philadelphia Clockmaker, Citizen, Gentleman, 1730-1803" (APS Press, 2024)
Edward Duffield (1730–1803) was a colonial Philadelphia clockmaker, whose elegant brass, mahogany, and walnut timekeepers stand proudly in major American…