Best Cambridge University Press Podcasts (2024)

1
Jason A. Josephson Storm, "The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences" (U Chicago Press, 2017) 1:10:14

13m ago1:10:14

1:10:14

A great many theorists have argued that the defining feature of modernity is that people no longer believe in spirits, myths, or magic. Jason Ā. Josephson-Storm argues that as broad cultural history goes, this narrative is wrong, as attempts to suppress magic have failed more often than they have succeeded. Even the human sciences have been more en…

1
Bring Science to the Reviewing of Science: Evidence-Based Standards for Peer Review 1:06:05

1h ago1:06:05

1:06:05

Listen to this interview of Paul Ralph, Professor, Dalhousie University, Canada. We talk about what's wrong with peer review — and how to fix it! Paul Ralph : "We don't want reviewers micromanaging style, complaining about the way the study is written. No, what we want — and need — is for reviewers to focus on the methodological details of the stud…

1
Amir Alexander, "Liberty's Grid: A Founding Father, a Mathematical Dreamland, and the Shaping of America" (U Chicago Press, 2024) 1:00:11

2h ago1:00:11

1:00:11

Seen from an airplane, much of the United States appears to be a gridded land of startling uniformity. Perpendicular streets and rectangular fields, all precisely measured and perfectly aligned, turn both urban and rural America into a checkerboard landscape that stretches from horizon to horizon. In evidence throughout the country, but especially …

1
Camilla Nord, "The Balanced Brain: The Science of Mental Health" (Princeton UP, 2024) 26:31

24m ago26:31

26:31

There are many routes to mental well-being. In this groundbreaking book, neuroscientist Camilla Nord offers a fascinating tour of the scientific developments that are revolutionising the way we think about mental health, showing why and how events--and treatments--can affect people in such different ways. In The Balanced Brain: The Science of Menta…

1
Ep 46: How Schools Can Create an Effective Predicted Grades Policy 27:09

15h ago27:09

27:09

Today, we’re going to be taking a closer look at predicted grades – dispelling misconceptions and giving advice for how your school can create an effective predicted grades policy. Our host is Laura Kahwati, Education Manager for Thought Leadership at Cambridge. She is joined by two special guests. Simon Child is the Head of Assessment Training at …

1
Whitney Barlow Robles, "Curious Species: How Animals Made Natural History" (Yale UP, 2023) 54:03

3h ago54:03

54:03

Dive into the world of animals with Whitney Barlow Robles in her captivating new book, Curious Species: How Animals Made Natural History (Yale UP, 2023). Can corals truly build worlds? Do rattlesnakes possess a mystical charm? What secrets do raccoons hold? These questions reflect how animals have historically challenged human attempts to control n…

1
Matthew C. Ehrlich, "The Krebiozen Hoax: How a Mysterious Cancer Drug Shook Organized Medicine" (U Illinois Press, 2024) 44:34

2d ago44:34

44:34

The brainchild of an obscure Yugoslav physician, Krebiozen emerged in 1951 as an alleged cancer treatment. Andrew Ivy, a University of Illinois vice president and a famed physiologist dubbed “the conscience of U.S. science,” wholeheartedly embraced Krebiozen. Ivy’s impeccable credentials and reputation made the treatment seem like another midcentur…

1
Michael Gavin, "Literary Mathematics: Quantitative Theory for Textual Studies" (Stanford UP, 2022) 54:53

4d ago54:53

54:53

Across the humanities and social sciences, scholars increasingly use quantitative methods to study textual data. Considered together, this research represents an extraordinary event in the long history of textuality. More or less all at once, the corpus has emerged as a major genre of cultural and scientific knowledge. In Literary Mathematics: Quan…

1
Al Posamentier and Christian Speitzer, “The Mathematics of Everyday Life” (Prometheus Books, 2018) 54:18

5d ago54:18

54:18

Today I talked to Al Posamentier about his books (co-authored with Christian Speitzer) The Mathematics of Everyday Life (Prometheus Books, 2018). We all are told – practically from the moment we enter school – that mathematics is important because it permeates practically all aspects of our lives. But, for the most part, we don’t really notice it e…

2
Al Posamentier and Christian Speitzer, “The Mathematics of Everyday Life” (Prometheus Books, 2018) 54:18

5d ago54:18

54:18

Today I talked to Al Posamentier about his books (co-authored with Christian Speitzer) The Mathematics of Everyday Life (Prometheus Books, 2018). We all are told – practically from the moment we enter school – that mathematics is important because it permeates practically all aspects of our lives. But, for the most part, we don’t really notice it e…

1
Jess Whatcott, "Menace to the Future: A Disability and Queer History of Carceral Eugenics" (Duke UP, 2024) 1:00:22

6d ago1:00:22

1:00:22

In Menace to the Future: A Disability and Queer History of Carceral Eugenics (Duke UP, 2024), Jess Whatcott traces the link between US disability institutions and early twentieth-century eugenicist ideology, demonstrating how the legacy of those ideas continues to shape incarceration and detention today. Whatcott focuses on California, examining re…

1
S4E4 In Defense of Bad Science and the Philosophy of Being 42:48

13d ago42:48

42:48

What role does science play in shaping our laws? How do we distinguish between good science and bad science? Where does science hit its limits due to our human nature? And how do we separate orthodox belief from true knowledge? These are just some of the thought-provoking questions we'll explore in our upcoming philosophical conversation on science…

1
Kostas Kampourakis, "Darwin Mythology: Debunking Myths, Correcting Falsehoods" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 44:41

10d ago44:41

44:41

Many historical ﬁgures have their lives and works shrouded in myth, both in life and long after their deaths. Charles Darwin (1809–82) is no exception to this phenomenon and his hero-worship has become an accepted narrative. Darwin Mythology: Debunking Myths, Correcting Falsehoods (Cambridge UP, 2024) unpacks this narrative to rehumanize Darwin's s…

1
Kostas Kampourakis, "Darwin Mythology: Debunking Myths, Correcting Falsehoods" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 44:41

10d ago44:41

44:41

Many historical ﬁgures have their lives and works shrouded in myth, both in life and long after their deaths. Charles Darwin (1809–82) is no exception to this phenomenon and his hero-worship has become an accepted narrative. Darwin Mythology: Debunking Myths, Correcting Falsehoods (Cambridge UP, 2024) unpacks this narrative to rehumanize Darwin's s…

1
Violet Moller, "The Map of Knowledge: A Thousand-Year History of How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found" (Doubleday, 2019) 1:06:15

11d ago1:06:15

1:06:15

Violet Moller has written a narrative history of the transmission of books from the ancient world to the modern. In The Map of Knowledge: A Thousand-Year History of How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found (Doubleday, 2019), Moller traces the histories of migration of three ancient authors, Euclid, Ptolemy and Galen, from ancient Alexandria in 500 t…

1
Elizabeth A. Williams, "Appetite and Its Discontents: Science, Medicine, and the Urge to Eat, 1750-1950" (U Chicago Press, 2020) 53:12

19d ago53:12

53:12

Why do we eat? Is it instinct? Despite the necessity of food, anxieties about what and how to eat are widespread and persistent. In Appetite and Its Discontents: Science, Medicine, and the Urge to Eat, 1750-1950 (University of Chicago Press, 2020), Elizabeth A. Williams explores contemporary worries about eating through the lens of science and medi…

1
Brian Clegg, "Ten Patterns That Explain the Universe" (MIT Press, 2021) 52:08

11d ago52:08

52:08

Our universe might appear chaotic, but deep down it's simply a myriad of rules working independently to create patterns of action, force, and consequence. In Ten Patterns That Explain the Universe (MIT Press, 2021), Brian Clegg explores the phenomena that make up the very fabric of our world by examining ten essential sequenced systems. From diagra…

1
Brian Clegg, "Ten Patterns That Explain the Universe" (MIT Press, 2021) 52:08

11d ago52:08

52:08

Our universe might appear chaotic, but deep down it's simply a myriad of rules working independently to create patterns of action, force, and consequence. In Ten Patterns That Explain the Universe (MIT Press, 2021), Brian Clegg explores the phenomena that make up the very fabric of our world by examining ten essential sequenced systems. From diagra…

1
Brian Clegg, "Ten Patterns That Explain the Universe" (MIT Press, 2021) 52:08

11d ago52:08

52:08

Our universe might appear chaotic, but deep down it's simply a myriad of rules working independently to create patterns of action, force, and consequence. In Ten Patterns That Explain the Universe (MIT Press, 2021), Brian Clegg explores the phenomena that make up the very fabric of our world by examining ten essential sequenced systems. From diagra…

1
Directions of Peer Review in Software Engineering 1:10:34

17d ago1:10:34

1:10:34

Listen to this interview of Bram Adams, Professor at the School of Computing, Queen's University, Canada. We talk about current developments in peer review, as it is practised in software engineering research. Bram Adams : "As an editor, one thing you want to see in a review is a summary that clearly says, 'Okay, my overall scoring is this, and my …

1
Joanna Wuest, "Born This Way: Science, Citizenship, and Inequality in the American LGBTQ+ Movement" (U Chicago Press, 2023) 57:20

17d ago57:20

57:20

Scholars often narrate the legal cases confirming LGBTQ+ rights as a huge success story. While it took 100 years to confirm the rights of Black Americans, it took far less time for courts to recognize marriage and adoption rights or workplace discrimination protections for queer people. The legal and political success of LGBTQ+ advocates often depe…

1
Cyrus Mody on the Importance of Square (as in NOT COOL) Scientists and Engineers 1:11:56

30d ago1:11:56

1:11:56

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks to Cyrus Mody, Professor in the History of Science, Technology, and Innovation and Director of the STS Program at Maastricht University, about his book, The Squares: US Physical and Engineering Scientists in the Long 1970s (MIT Press, 2022). Many narratives about contemporary technologies, especially digital…

1
Cyrus Mody on the Importance of Square (as in NOT COOL) Scientists and Engineers 1:11:56

25d ago1:11:56

1:11:56

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks to Cyrus Mody, Professor in the History of Science, Technology, and Innovation and Director of the STS Program at Maastricht University, about his book, The Squares: US Physical and Engineering Scientists in the Long 1970s (MIT Press, 2022). Many narratives about contemporary technologies, especially digital…

1
Regina G. Kunzel, "In the Shadow of Diagnosis: Psychiatric Power and Queer Life" (U Chicago Press, 2024) 52:36

26d ago52:36

52:36

In the mid-twentieth century, American psychiatrists proclaimed homosexuality a mental disorder, one that was treatable and amenable to cure. Drawing on a collection of previously unexamined case files from St. Elizabeths Hospital, In the Shadow of Diagnosis: Psychiatric Power and Queer Life (U Chicago Press, 2024) explores the encounter between ps…

1
Nick Chater, "The Mind Is Flat: The Remarkable Shallowness of the Improvising Brain" (Yale UP, 2019) 1:42:59

20d ago1:42:59

1:42:59

Psychologists and neuroscientists struggle with how best to interpret human motivation and decision making. The assumption is that below a mental “surface” of conscious awareness lies a deep and complex set of inner beliefs, values, and desires that govern our thoughts, ideas, and actions, and that to know this depth is to know ourselves. In the Th…

1
Nick Haddad, "The Last Butterflies: A Scientist's Quest to Save a Rare and Vanishing Creature" (Princeton UP, 2019) 59:01

21d ago59:01

59:01

Butterflies have long captivated the imagination of humans, from naturalists to children to poets. Indeed it would be hard to imagine a world without butterflies. And yet their populations are declining at an alarming rate, to the extent that even the seemingly ubiquitous Monarch could conceivably go the way of the Passenger Pigeon. Many other, mor…

1
Noah Heringman, "Deep Time: A Literary History" (Princeton UP, 2023) 53:04

1M ago53:04

53:04

In Deep Time: A Literary History (Princeton UP, 2023), Noah Heringman, Curators’ Professor of English at the University of Missouri, presents a “counter-history” of deep time. This counter-history acknowledges and investigates the literary and imaginary origins of the idea of deep time, from eighteen-century narratives of voyages around the world t…

1
Heather Murray, "Asylum Ways of Seeing: Psychiatric Patients, American Thought and Culture" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022) 43:53

1M ago43:53

43:53

Asylum Ways of Seeing: Psychiatric Patients, American Thought and Culture (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021) by Dr. Heather Murray is a cultural and intellectual history of people with mental illnesses in the twentieth-century United States. While acknowledging the fraught, and often violent, histories of American psychiatric hospitals, Heath…

1
Iris Berent, "The Blind Storyteller: How We Reason about Human Nature" (Oxford UP, 2020) 56:28

1M ago56:28

56:28

Do newborns think-do they know that 'three' is greater than 'two'? Do they prefer 'right' to 'wrong'? What about emotions--do newborns recognize happiness or anger? If they do, then how are our inborn thoughts and feelings encoded in our bodies? Could they persist after we die? Going all the way back to ancient Greece, human nature and the mind-bod…

1
Gavin Steingo, "Interspecies Communication: Sound and Music Beyond Humanity" (U Chicago Press, 2024) 58:15

1M ago58:15

58:15

In Interspecies Communication: Sound and Music Beyond Humanity (U Chicago Press, 2024), music scholar Gavin Steingo examines significant cases of attempted communication beyond the human--cases in which the dualistic relationship of human to non-human is dramatically challenged. From singing whales to Sun Ra to searching for alien life, Steingo cha…

1
Edward Shanks, "The People of the Ruins" (MIT Press, 2024) 1:01:02

1M ago1:01:02

1:01:02

In The People of the Ruins (originally published in 1920), Edward Shanks imagines England in the not-so-distant future as a neo mediaeval society whose inhabitants have forgotten how to build or operate machinery. Jeremy Tuft is a physics instructor and former artillery officer who is cryogenically frozen in his laboratory only to emerge after a ce…

1
Mark Walker, "Hitler's Atomic Bomb: History, Legend, and the Twin Legacies of Auschwitz and Hiroshima" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 1:01:04

2M ago1:01:04

1:01:04

Who were the German scientists who worked on atomic bombs during World War II for Hitler's regime? How did they justify themselves afterwards? Examining the global influence of the German uranium project and postwar reactions to the scientists involved, Mark Walker explores the narratives surrounding 'Hitler's bomb'. The global impacts of this proj…

1
Robert Baker, "Making Modern Medical Ethics: How African Americans, Anti-Nazis, Bureaucrats, Feminists, Veterans, and Whistleblowing Moralists Created Bioethics" (MIT Press, 2024) 1:02:56

1M ago1:02:56

1:02:56

The little-known stories of the people responsible for what we know today as modern medical ethics. In Making Modern Medical Ethics: How African Americans, Anti-Nazis, Bureaucrats, Feminists, Veterans, and Whistleblowing Moralists Created Bioethics (MIT Press, 2024), Robert Baker tells the counter history of the birth of bioethics, bringing to the …

1
Resonant Grains 44:09

2M ago44:09

44:09

In the 1950s, a schoolteacher named Carleen Hutchins attempted a revolution in how concert violins are made. In this episode, Craig Eley of the Field Noise podcast tells us how this amateur outsider used 18th century science to disrupt the all-male guild tradition of violin luthiers. Would the myth of the never-equaled Stradivarius violin prove to …

1
Kirsten Moore-Sheeley, "Nothing But Nets: A Biography of Global Health Science and Its Objects" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023) 1:02:29

2M ago1:02:29

1:02:29

Distributed to millions of people annually across Africa and the global south, insecticide-treated bed nets have become a cornerstone of malaria control and twenty-first-century global health initiatives. Despite their seemingly obvious public health utility, however, these chemically infused nets and their rise to prominence were anything but inev…

1
Anton Howes, "Arts and Minds: How the Royal Society of Arts Changed a Nation" (Princeton UP, 2020) 1:10:57

2M ago1:10:57

1:10:57

Over the past 300 years, The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce has tried to improve British life in every way imaginable. It has sought to influence education, commerce, music, art, architecture, communications, food, and every other corner of society. Arts and Minds: How the Royal Society of Arts Changed a Nati…

1
David Badre, "On Task: How Our Brain Gets Things Done" (Princeton UP, 2020) 42:29

2M ago42:29

42:29

On Task: How Our Brain Gets Things Done (Princeton UP, 2020) is a look at the extraordinary ways the brain turns thoughts into actions—and how this shapes our everyday lives. Why is it hard to text and drive at the same time? How do you resist eating that extra piece of cake? Why does staring at a tax form feel mentally exhausting? Why can your chi…

1
Ep 45: Early Years Teaching and Learning 48:48

2M ago48:48

48:48

In today's episode we are discussing one of the most important stages of a child's development: early years. For this episode, we're joined by Abigail Barnett, Director of Cambridge 3-19 Curriculum, who has overall responsibility of the Cambridge Early Years Programme. We're also joined by Alison Borthwick, International Education Advisor and Cambr…

1
Sasha Warren, "Storming Bedlam: Madness, Mental Health, and Revolt" (Common Notions, 2024) 1:26:42

2M ago1:26:42

1:26:42

Mental health care and its radical possibilities reimagined in the context of its global development under capitalism. The contemporary world is oversaturated with psychiatric programs, methods, and reforms promising to address any number of "crises" in mental health care. When these fail, alternatives to the alternatives simply pile up and seem to…

1
Monika Krause, "Model Cases: On Canonical Research Objects and Sites" (U Chicago Press, 2021) 34:07

2M ago34:07

34:07

In Model Cases: On Canonical Research Objects and Sites (University of Chicago Press, 2021), Dr. Monika Krause asks about the concrete material research objects behind shared conversations about classes of objects, periods, and regions in the social sciences and humanities. It is well known that biologists focus on particular organisms, such as mic…

1
Donna Drucker, "Contraception: A Concise History" (The MIT Press, 2020) 23:53

2M ago23:53

23:53

The beginning of the modern contraceptive era began in 1882, when Dr. Aletta Jacobs opened the first birth control clinic in Amsterdam. The founding of this facility, and the clinical provision of contraception that it enabled, marked the moment when physicians started to take the prevention of pregnancy seriously as a medical concern. In Contracep…

1
David J. Hand, "Dark Data: Why What You Don't Know Matters" (Princeton UP, 2020) 1:18:03

2M ago1:18:03

1:18:03

There is no shortage of books on the growing impact of data collection and analysis on our societies, our cultures, and our everyday lives. David Hand's new book Dark Data: Why What You Don't Know Matters (Princeton University Press, 2020) is unique in this genre for its focus on those data that aren't collected or don't get analyzed. More than an …

1
David J. Hand, "Dark Data: Why What You Don't Know Matters" (Princeton UP, 2020) 1:18:03

2M ago1:18:03

1:18:03

There is no shortage of books on the growing impact of data collection and analysis on our societies, our cultures, and our everyday lives. David Hand's new book Dark Data: Why What You Don't Know Matters (Princeton University Press, 2020) is unique in this genre for its focus on those data that aren't collected or don't get analyzed. More than an …

1
Alan Lightman, "Einstein's Dreams" (Vintage, 1992) 55:06

2M ago55:06

55:06

Einstein’s Dreams (Vintage, 1992) by Alan Lightman, set in Albert Einstein’s “miracle year” of 1905, is a novel about the cultural interconnection of time, relativity and life. As the young genius creates his theory of relativity, in a series of dreams, he imagines other worlds, each with a different conceptualization of time. In one, time is circu…

1
Alan Lightman, "Einstein's Dreams" (Vintage, 1992) 55:06

2M ago55:06

55:06

Einstein’s Dreams (Vintage, 1992) by Alan Lightman, set in Albert Einstein’s “miracle year” of 1905, is a novel about the cultural interconnection of time, relativity and life. As the young genius creates his theory of relativity, in a series of dreams, he imagines other worlds, each with a different conceptualization of time. In one, time is circu…

1
The (ir)Rational Rainbow (the DSM & the Fight to Depathologize Homosexuality) 1:14:39

2M ago1:14:39

1:14:39

The psychological establishment has long pathologized diverse forms of sexual identity and gender expression. In the mid-century, a brave movement of gays and lesbians fought back and claimed: no, actually, we’re healthy. But in the process, did they define other identities unhealthy? This is episode two of Cited Podcast's returning season, the Rat…

1
Pierre Sokolsky, "Clock in the Sun: How We Came to Understand Our Nearest Star" (Columbia UP, 2024) 29:03

2M ago29:03

29:03

On the surface of the Sun, spots appear and fade in a predictable cycle, like a great clock in the sky. In medieval Russia, China, and Korea, monks and court astronomers recorded the appearance of these dark shapes, interpreting them as omens of things to come. In Western Europe, by contrast, where a cosmology originating with Aristotle prevailed, …

1
Pierre Sokolsky, "Clock in the Sun: How We Came to Understand Our Nearest Star" (Columbia UP, 2024) 29:03

3M ago29:03

29:03

On the surface of the Sun, spots appear and fade in a predictable cycle, like a great clock in the sky. In medieval Russia, China, and Korea, monks and court astronomers recorded the appearance of these dark shapes, interpreting them as omens of things to come. In Western Europe, by contrast, where a cosmology originating with Aristotle prevailed, …

1
Pandemics Perspectives 15: The Dynamic Nature of Science 1:16:31

3M ago1:16:31

1:16:31

In this Pandemic Perspectives Podcast, Ideas Roadshow founder and host Howard Burton talks to Michael Gordin, Rosengarten Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Princeton University, about the differences between science and pseudoscience and how the COVID-19 Pandemic showed that most people don't realize that science is highly dynamic. Go…

1
Pandemics Perspectives 15: The Dynamic Nature of Science 1:16:31

3M ago1:16:31

1:16:31

In this Pandemic Perspectives Podcast, Ideas Roadshow founder and host Howard Burton talks to Michael Gordin, Rosengarten Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Princeton University, about the differences between science and pseudoscience and how the COVID-19 Pandemic showed that most people don't realize that science is highly dynamic. Go…

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