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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
Gina Sipley, "Just Here for the Comments: Lurking as Digital Literacy Practice" (Bristol UP, 2024)
We all sometimes ‘lurk’ in online spaces without posting or engaging, just reading the posts and comments. But neither reading nor lurking are ever passive…
- New Books in Technology
Tiziano Bonini and Emiliano Trere, "Algorithms of Resistance: The Everyday Fight against Platform Power" (MIT Press, 2024)
What are the tactics needed for a world of platforms and algorithms? In Algorithms of Resistance: The Everyday Fight against Platform Power (MIT Press, 2024)…
- New Books in Technology
MC Forelle on Cars, Chipification, and Repair
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with MC Forelle, Assistant Professor of Engineering & Society at the School of Engineering and Applied Science at…
- New Books in Technology
John Powers, "Technology and the Making of Experimental Film Culture" (Oxford UP, 2023)
The Bolex camera, 16mm reversal film stocks, commercial film laboratories, and low-budget optical printers were the small-gauge media technologies that…
- New Books in Technology
Natalia Grincheva and Elizabeth Stainforth, "Geopolitics of Digital Heritage" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
How are digital platforms transforming heritage? In Geopolitics of Digital Heritage (Cambridge UP, 2023), Dr Natalia Grincheva, Program Leader of the BA (Hons)…
- New Books in Technology
Anu Bradford, "Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology" (Oxford UP, 2023)
The global battle among the three dominant digital powers―the United States, China, and the European Union―is intensifying. All three regimes are racing to…
- New Books in Technology
Asif Siddiqi on Rockets, Prisons, Pop Songs, and So Much More
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Asif Siddiqi, Professor of History at Fordham University, about the arc of his career and his wide-ranging…
- New Books in Technology
Héctor Beltrán, "Code Work: Hacking Across the US/México Techno-Borderlands" (Princeton UP, 2023)
In Code Work: Hacking Across the US/México Techno-Borderlands (Princeton UP, 2023), Héctor Beltrán examines Mexican and Latinx coders’ personal strategies of…
- New Books in Technology
Coreen McGuire, "Measuring Difference, Numbering Normal: Setting the Standards for Disability in the Interwar Period" (Manchester UP, 2020)
Measurements, and their manipulation, have been underestimated as crucial historical forces motivating and guiding the way we think about disability.Using…
- New Books in Technology
Heather Parry, "Electric Dreams: Sex Robots and Failed Promises of Capitalism" (404 Ink, 2024)
In the future, we’ll all be having sex with robots… won’t we?Roboticists say they’re a distracting science fiction, yet endless books, films and articles are…
- New Books in Technology
Stephen Morillo, "War and Conflict in the Middle Ages" (Polity Press, 2022)
In War and Conflict in the Middle Ages (Polity, 2022), Dr. Stephen Morillo offers the first global history of armed conflict between 540 and 1500 or as late as…
- New Books in Technology
Stewart Lawrence Sinclair, "Space Rover" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
In 1971, the first lunar rover arrived on the moon. The design became an icon of American ingenuity and the adventurous spirit and vision many equated with the…
- New Books in Technology
Tina Sikka, "Health Apps, Genetic Diets and Superfoods: When Biopolitics Meets Neoliberalism" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Health Apps, Genetic Diets and Superfoods: When Biopolitics Meets Neoliberalism (Bloomsbury, 2023) critically examines contemporary health and wellness culture…
- New Books in Technology
Marc Masters, "High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape" (UNC Press, 2023)
The cassette tape was revolutionary. Cheap, portable, and reusable, this small plastic rectangle changed music history. Make your own tapes! Trade them with…
- New Books in Technology
Guru Madhavan on Wicked Problems and Engineering a Better World
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Guru Madhavan, Norman R. Augustine Senior Scholar and Senior Director of Programs at the National Academy of…
- New Books in Technology
Max Bennett, "A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, Ai, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains" (Mariner Books, 2023)
A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, Ai, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains (Mariner Books, 2023) tells two fascinating stories. One is the…
- New Books in Technology
Matthew H. Hersch, "Dark Star: A New History of the Space Shuttle" (MIT Press, 2023)
In Dark Star: A New History of the Space Shuttle (MIT Press, 2023), Dr. Matthew Hersch challenges the existing narrative of the most significant human space…
- New Books in Technology
Robert Willim, "Mundania: How and Where Technologies Are Made Ordinary" (Bristol UP, 2024)
Robert Willim's new book Mundania: How and Where Technologies Are Made Ordinary (Bristol University Press, 2024), takes the reader on a journey through the…
- New Books in Technology
Thomas S. Mullaney, "The Chinese Computer: A Global History of the Information Age" (MIT Press, 2024)
The fascinating, untold story of how the Chinese language overcame unparalleled challenges and revolutionized the world of computing. A standard QWERTY…
- New Books in Technology
Ignacio Cofone, "The Privacy Fallacy: Harm and Power in the Information Economy" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
Our privacy is besieged by tech companies.Companies can do this because our laws are built on outdated ideas that trap lawmakers, regulators, and courts into…
- New Books in Technology
Anita R. Gohdes, "Repression in the Digital Age: Surveillance, Censorship, and the Dynamics of State Violence" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Global adoption of the Internet has exploded, yet we are only beginning to understand the Internet's profound political consequences. Authoritarian states are…
- New Books in Technology
How Can We Reach International Consensus on AI Regulation?
In this episode of International Horizons, RBI director John Torpey interviews Gabriele Mazzini, a lawyer and officer of the European Commission and expert in…
- New Books in Technology
John Warner on Teaching Writing in the Age of Generative AI
Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel talks with writer and editor John Warner, who taught writing at the college level for more than twenty years. Warner is the…
- New Books in Technology
On Bloomsbury's "Object Lessons" Series: A Discussion with Christopher Schaberg
Object Lessons is a series of concise, collectable, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Each book starts from a specific…
- New Books in Technology
George S. Takach, "Cold War 2.0: Artificial Intelligence in the New Battle between China, Russia, and America" (Pegasus Book, 2024)
A vivid, thoughtful examination of how technological innovation—especially AI—is shaping the tensions between democracy and autocracy during the new Cold War…
- New Books in Technology
Tonia Sutherland, "Resurrecting the Black Body: Race and the Digital Afterlife" (U California Press, 2023)
The first critical examination of death and remembrance in the digital age—and an invitation to imagine Black digital sovereignty in life and death.In…
- New Books in Technology
Lisa Messeri, "In the Land of the Unreal: Virtual and Other Realities in Los Angeles" (Duke UP, 2024)
In the mid-2010s, a passionate community of Los Angeles-based storytellers, media artists, and tech innovators formed around virtual reality (VR), believing…
- New Books in Technology
Once More--What Does It Even Mean for a Machine to be Generative?
Listen to Episode No.9 of All We Mean, a Special Focus of this podcast. All We Mean is an ongoing discussion and debate about how we mean and why. The guests…
- New Books in Technology
Nick Jones, "Gooey Media: Screen Entertainment and the Graphic User Interface" (Edinburgh UP, 2023)
The Graphic User Interface, or GUI, is the adhesive centre of today’s screen entertainment web. From films and television to apps and videogames, it holds…
- New Books in Technology
Peter D. McDonald, "Run and Jump: The Meaning of the 2D Platformer" (MIT Press, 2024)
How abstract design decisions in 2D platform games create rich worlds of meaning for players.Since the 1980s, 2D platform games have captivated their…
- New Books in Technology
Zachary Loeb on the History of the End of the World
Are you into the end of the world? Well, have we got the guest for you. In this episode, Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel interviews Zachary Loeb, assistant…
- New Books in Technology
Brian Merchant, "Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech" (LIttle, Brown, 2023)
"Luddite" has become an insult and Brain Merchant wants to change that. Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech (Little, Brown…
- New Books in Technology
Hsuan L. Hsu, "Air Conditioning" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
Air conditioning aspires to be unnoticed. Yet, by manipulating the air around us, it quietly conditions the baseline conditions of our physical, mental, and…
- New Books in Technology
Robert Charette on Researching the Material World
In this episode, Peoples & Thing host Lee Vinsel interviews engineer, businessman, consultant, author, contributing editor at IEEE Magazine, and former P&T…
- New Books in Technology
Verity Harding, "AI Needs You: How We Can Change AI's Future and Save Our Own" (Princeton UP, 2024)
Artificial intelligence may be the most transformative technology of our time. As AI's power grows, so does the need to figure out what--and who--this…
- New Books in Technology
Carol Beggy, "Pencil" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
A cylinder of baked graphite and clay in a wood case, the pencil creates as it is being destroyed. To love a pencil is to use it, to sharpen it, and to…
- New Books in Technology
Yanis Varoufakis, "Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism" (Melville House, 2023)
In Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism (Melville House, 2023), Yanis Varoufakis argues that capitalism is dead and a new economic era has begun.Insane sums…
- New Books in Technology
Paul Scharre, "Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" (Norton, 2023)
An award-winning defense expert tells the story of today’s great power rivalry―the struggle to control artificial intelligence.A new industrial revolution has…
- New Books in Technology
What Does It Even Mean for a Machine to Generate?
Listen to Episode No.8 of All We Mean, a Special Focus of this podcast. All We Mean is an ongoing discussion and debate about how we mean and why. The guests…
- New Books in Technology
Jacob Ward, "Visions of a Digital Nation: Market and Monopoly in British Telecommunications" (MIT Press, 2024)
In Visions of a Digital Nation: Market and Monopoly in British Telecommunications (MIT Press, 2024), Jacob Ward explains why the privatization of British…
- New Books in Technology
Neil Lee, "Innovation for the Masses: How to Share the Benefits of the High-Tech Economy" (U California Press, 2024)
How can we build a more equal economy? In Innovation for the Masses: How to Share the Benefits of the High-Tech Economy (U California Press, 2024), Neil Lee, a…
- New Books in Technology
Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson, "American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15" (FSG, 2023)
In the 1950s, an obsessive firearms designer named Eugene Stoner invented the AR-15 rifle in a California garage. High-minded and patriotic, Stoner sought to…
- New Books in Technology
Nate Klemp, "Open: Living with an Expansive Mind in a Distracted World" (Sounds True, 2024)
With the avalanche of information we get every day, closing down our minds and hearts seems to be the only way to survive. We close down to our inner…
- New Books in Technology
Jenna Ng, "The Post-Screen Through Virtual Reality, Holograms and Light Projections: Where Screen Boundaries Lie" (Amsterdam UP, 2021)
Screens are ubiquitous today. Yet contemporary screen media eliminate the presence of the screen and diminish the visibility of its boundaries. As the image…
- New Books in Technology
Markus Krajewski, "The Server: A Media History from the Present to the Baroque" (Yale UP, 2018)
The Server: A Media History from the Present to the Baroque (Yale UP, 2018) is a cutting–edge media history on a perennially fascinating topic that attempts to…
- New Books in Technology
Chen-Pang Yeang, "Transforming Noise. A History of Its Science and Technology from Disturbing Sounds to Informational Errors, 1900-1955" (2023)
Today, the concept of noise is employed to characterize random fluctuations in general. Before the twentieth century, however, noise only meant disturbing…
- New Books in Technology
Paddy Walker and Peter Roberts, "War's Changed Landscape?: A Primer on Conflict's Forms and Norms" (Howgate, 2023)
Throughout much of the 21st century thus far, the common argument among military pundits was that war has or will soon be radically changed in manners that…
- New Books in Technology
Hartmut Koenitz, "Understanding Interactive Digital Narrative: Immersive Expressions for a Complex Time" (Routledge, 2023)
This remarkably clearly written and timely critical evaluation of core issues in the study and application of interactive digital narrative (IDN) untangles the…
- New Books in Technology
What Decision Means
Listen to Episode No.5 of All We Mean, a Special Focus of this podcast. All We Mean is an ongoing discussion and debate about how we mean and why. The guests…
- New Books in Technology
Paul Gowder, "The Networked Leviathan: For Democratic Platforms" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
Governments and consumers expect internet platform companies to regulate their users to prevent fraud, stop misinformation, and avoid violence. Yet, so far…
- New Books in Technology
James C. Goodall, "Nautilus to Columbia: 70 Years of the US Navy's Nuclear Submarines" (Osprey, 2023)
In Nautilus to Columbia: 70 Years of the US Navy's Nuclear Submarines (Osprey, 2023), James C. Goodall covers the origins, design and development of the US…
- New Books in Technology
Can A.I. Mean?
Listen to Episode No.4 of All We Mean, a Special Focus of this podcast. All We Mean is an ongoing discussion and debate about how we mean and why. The guests…
- New Books in Technology
Roland Allen, "The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper" (Profile Books, 2023)
We see notebooks everywhere we go. But where did this simple invention come from? How did they revolutionise our lives, and why are they such powerful tools…
- New Books in Technology
Carolyn Birdsall, "Radiophilia" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
A century ago, the emergence of radio, along with organized systems of broadcasting, sparked a global fascination with the 'wonder' of sound transmission and…
- New Books in Technology
Ben Jacobsen and David Beer, "Social Media and the Automatic Production of Memory: Classification, Ranking and the Sorting of the Past" (Bristol UP, 2023)
Social media platforms hold vast amounts of biographical data about our lives. They repackage our past content as ‘memories’ and deliver them back to us. But…
- New Books in Technology
André Jansson, "Rethinking Communication Geographies: Geomedia, Digital Logistics and the Human Condition" (Edward Elgar, 2022)
How are geographies of communication changing with contemporary digital media and data infrastructure? What is ‘geomedia’ and ‘transmedia’? Where are the…
- New Books in Technology
Howie Singer and Bill Rosenblatt, "Key Changes: The Ten Times Technology Transformed the Music Industry" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Key Changes: The Ten Times Technology Transformed the Music Industry (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Howie Singer and Bill Rosenblatt tells a new story…
- New Books in Technology
John D. Hosler, "Seven Myths of Military History" (Hackett Publishing, 2022)
John D. Hosler's book Seven Myths of Military History (Hackett Publishing, 2022) "offers snapshots of seven pernicious myths in military history that have been…
- New Books in Technology
Joanna Zylinska, "The Perception Machine: Our Photographic Future between the Eye and AI" (MIT Press, 2023)
A provocative investigation of the future of photography and human perception in the age of AI.We are constantly photographing and being photographed while…
- New Books in Technology
Laila Shereen Sakr, "Arabic Glitch: Technoculture, Data Bodies, and Archives" (Stanford UP, 2023)
Laila Shereen Sakr's book Arabic Glitch: Technoculture, Data Bodies, and Archives (Stanford UP, 2023) explores an alternative origin story of twenty-first…