Best The Mit Press Podcasts (2024)

1
Aram Sinnreich and Jesse Gilbert, "The Secret Life of Data: Navigating Hype and Uncertainty in the Age of Algorithmic Surveillance" (MIT Press, 2024) 39:27

3d ago39:27

39:27

What is data, and why does it matter for us to care about the data traces we leave behind? What are the implications for our lives of how this data is used by other people in other times and places? In a conversation with Joanne Kuai, authors Aram Sinnreich and Jesse Gilbert introduce their new book and talk about how we can rethink our relationshi…

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

5d 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
Tim Sweijs and Jeffrey H. Michaels, "Beyond Ukraine: Debating the Future of War" (Oxford UP, 2024) 1:14:05

13m ago1:14:05

1:14:05

War in the 21st century will remain a chameleon that takes on different forms and guises. Beyond Ukraine: Debating the Future of War (Oxford University Press, 2024) edited by Tim Sweijs and Jeffrey H. Michaels offers the first comprehensive update and revision of ideas about the future of war since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. It argues that …

1
Ben Kaplan and Danny Parkins, "Pipeline to the Pros: How D3 Small-College Nobodies Rose to Rule the NBA" (Triumph Books, 2024) 56:13

14m ago56:13

56:13

Today I talked to Ben Kaplan about his new book (co-authored with Danny Parkins) Pipeline to the Pros: How D3 Small-College Nobodies Rose to Rule the NBA (Triumph Books, 2024). Jeff Van Gundy. Brad Stevens. Frank Vogel. Mike Budenholzer. Tom Thibodeau. Sam Presti. Leon Rose. Before you knew his name, before he drafted your favorite player, before h…

1
Alexander Sasha Kondakov, "Violent Affections: Queer Sexuality, Techniques of Power, and Law in Russia" (UCL Press, 2022) 1:03:09

5h ago1:03:09

1:03:09

Violent Affections: Queer Sexuality, Techniques of Power, and Law in Russia (UCL Press, 2022) by Alexander Sasha Kondakov uncovers techniques of power that work to translate emotions into violence against queer people. Based on analysis of over 300 criminal cases of anti-queer violence in Russia before and after the introduction of ‘gay propaganda’…

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

11m 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
Miguel Escobar Varela, "Theater as Data: Computational Journeys Into Theater Research" (U Michigan Press, 2021) 36:21

4h ago36:21

36:21

In Theater As Data: Computational Journeys Into Theater Research (U Michigan Press, 2021), Miguel Escobar Varela explores the use of computational methods and digital data in theater research. He considers the implications of these new approaches, and explains the roles that statistics and visualizations play. Reflecting on recent debates in the hu…

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

37m 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

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

23h 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
Lucia Hulsether, "Capitalist Humanitarianism" (Duke UP, 2023) 1:12:46

2h ago1:12:46

1:12:46

The struggle against neoliberal order has gained momentum over the last five decades – to the point that economic elites have not only adapted to the Left's critiques but incorporated them for capitalist expansion. Venture funds expose their ties to slavery and pledge to invest in racial equity. Banks pitch microloans as a path to indigenous self-d…

1
Özge Çelikaslan, "Archiving the Commons: Looking Through the Lens of bak.ma" (DPR Barcelona, 2024) 39:43

1h ago39:43

39:43

“Stories of archives are always stories of phantoms, of the death or disappearance or erasure of something, the preservation of what remains, and its possible reappearance—feared by some, desired by others,” writes Thomas Keenan. Archiving the Commons: Looking Through the Lens of bak.ma (DPR Barcelona, June 2024) is about those stories and much mor…

1
Thomas Zeller, "Consuming Landscapes: What We See When We Drive and Why It Matters" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2022) 1:15:41

26m ago1:15:41

1:15:41

What we see through our windshields reflects ideas about our national identity, consumerism, and infrastructure. For better or worse, windshields have become a major frame for viewing the nonhuman world. The view from the road is one of the main ways in which we experience our environments. These vistas are the result of deliberate historical force…

1
Sarah Milton, "Ageing and New Intimacies: Gender, Sexuality and Temporality in an English Salsa Scene" (Manchester UP, 2024) 53:25

10h ago53:25

53:25

The 'baby boom' generation, born between the 1940s and the 1960s, is often credited with pioneering new and creative ways of relating, doing intimacy and making families. With this cohort now entering mid and later life in Britain, they are also said to be revolutionising the experience of ageing. Are the romantic practices of this 'revolutionary c…

1
James Mallery, "City of Vice: Transience and San Francisco's Urban History, 1848-1917" (U Nebraska Press, 2024) 1:05:11

1h ago1:05:11

1:05:11

San Francisco began its American life as a city largely made up of transient men, arriving from afar to participate in the gold rush and various attendant enterprises. This large population of men on the move made the new and booming city a hub of what "respectable" easterners considered vice: drinking, gambling, and sex work, among other activitie…

1
Sino-Pacific Relations: A Discussion with Rodolfo Maggio 25:19

23m ago25:19

25:19

The 2024 Solomon Islands elections were surprisingly peaceful. The deepening economic inequalities, widespread corruption, rogue demagogues manipulating the mob, and other aspects such as the heated debate about the increasing presence and influence of China, did not result in the kind of riots that hit this Pacific Island country twice in the prev…

1
Paula Bialski on Middletech, Software Work, and the Culture of Good Enough 1:11:31

3d ago1:11:31

1:11:31

Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel talks with Paula Bialski, an Associate Professor for Digital Sociology at the University of St. Gallen in St. Gallen, Switzerland, about her recent book, Middle Tech: Software Work and the Culture of Good Enough (Princeton UP, 2024). The pair talk about the art of ethnographic study of software work, and how, maybe,…

1
Kristen R. Ghodsee, "Second World, Second Sex: Socialist Women's Activism and Global Solidarity during the Cold War" (Duke UP, 2019) 1:11:29

32m ago1:11:29

1:11:29

Last week, I had the privilege to talk with Dr. Kristen R. Ghodsee about her most recent book Second World, Second Sex: Socialist Women's Activism and Global Solidarity during the Cold War (Duke University Press, 2019) and the behind-the-scene details of its making. Ghodsee is a professor in Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pe…

1
Kristin J. Jacobson, "The American Adrenaline Narrative" (U Georgia Press, 2020) 57:56

26m ago57:56

57:56

Kristin J. Jacobson In her new book, The American Adrenaline Narrative (University of Georgia Press), Kristin Jacobson considers the nature of perilous outdoor adventure tales, their gendered biases, and how they simultaneously promote and hinder ecological sustainability. To explore these themes, Jacobson defines and compares adrenaline narratives…

1
Kevin Leo Nadal, "Queering Law and Order: LGBTQ Communities and the Criminal Justice System" (Lexington Book, 2020) 38:54

1h ago38:54

38:54

Throughout US history, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people have been pathologized, victimized, and criminalized. Reports of lynching, burning, or murdering of LGBTQ people have been documented for centuries. Prior to the 1970s, LGBTQ people were deemed as having psychological disorders and subsequently subject to electrosh…

1
Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz and Sara A. Howard, "Grabbing Tea: Queer Conversations in Librarianship" (Litwin Books, 2024) 53:54

6h ago53:54

53:54

This interview with Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz about Grabbing Tea: Queer Conversations on Identity and Libraries and Grabbing Tea: Queer Conversations on Archives and Practice (available in 2024 from the Litwin Books Series on Gender and Sexuality in Library and Information Studies) explores how queerness is centered within library and archival theory an…

1
Carl Öhman, "The Afterlife of Data: What Happens to Your Information When You Die and Why You Should Care" (U Chicago Press, 2024) 41:02

3d ago41:02

41:02

A short, thought-provoking book about what happens to our online identities after we die. These days, so much of our lives takes place online—but what about our afterlives? Thanks to the digital trails that we leave behind, our identities can now be reconstructed after our death. In fact, AI technology is already enabling us to “interact” with the …

1
Carl Öhman, "The Afterlife of Data: What Happens to Your Information When You Die and Why You Should Care" (U Chicago Press, 2024) 41:02

32m ago41:02

41:02

A short, thought-provoking book about what happens to our online identities after we die. These days, so much of our lives takes place online—but what about our afterlives? Thanks to the digital trails that we leave behind, our identities can now be reconstructed after our death. In fact, AI technology is already enabling us to “interact” with the …

1
AI and Music: The Future is Here (featuring "There I Ruined It") 1:00:34

7h ago1:00:34

1:00:34

It’s the UConn Popcast, and recently UConn’s Center for the Study of Popular Music hosted a panel discussion on Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Music. The panel featured Dr. Mitchell Green, Professor of Philosophy, University of Connecticut; Dustin Ballard, a musician and creator of the social media channel “There I Ruined It”; and Dr. Aa…

1
Maya Wind, "Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom" (Verso, 2024) 48:30

11d ago48:30

48:30

Israeli universities have long enjoyed a reputation as liberal bastions of freedom and democracy. Drawing on extensive research and making Hebrew sources accessible to the international community, Maya Wind shatters this myth by documenting how Israeli universities are directly complicit in the violation of Palestinian rights. In Towers of Ivory an…

1
Mary Schreiber and Wendy K. Bartlett, "Curating Community Collections: A Holistic Approach to Diverse Collection Development" (Bloomsbury, 2024) 58:17

11d ago58:17

58:17

A primary question for many librarians, directors, and board members is how to evaluate diversity in a collection on an ongoing basis. Curating Community Collections: A Holistic Approach to Diverse Collection Development (Bloomsbury, 2024) by Mary Schreiber and Wendy Bartlett provides librarians with the tools they need to understand the results of…

1
Maya Pagni Barak, "The Slow Violence of Immigration Court: Procedural Justice on Trial" (NYU Press, 2023) 49:29

2d ago49:29

49:29

Each year, hundreds of thousands of migrants are moved through immigration court. With a national backlog surpassing one million cases, court hearings take years and most migrants will eventually be ordered deported. The Slow Violence of Immigration Court: Procedural Justice on Trial (NYU Press, 2023) by Dr. Maya Pagni Barak sheds light on the expe…

1
Aram Sinnreich and Jesse Gilbert, "The Secret Life of Data: Navigating Hype and Uncertainty in the Age of Algorithmic Surveillance" (MIT Press, 2024) 39:27

3d ago39:27

39:27

What is data, and why does it matter for us to care about the data traces we leave behind? What are the implications for our lives of how this data is used by other people in other times and places? In a conversation with Joanne Kuai, authors Aram Sinnreich and Jesse Gilbert introduce their new book and talk about how we can rethink our relationshi…

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

3d 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
Sasha Warren, "Storming Bedlam: Madness, Mental Health, and Revolt" (Common Notions, 2024) 1:26:42

3d 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
Shannon Vallor, "The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking" (Oxford UP, 2024) 1:06:36

3d ago1:06:36

1:06:36

There's a lot of talk these days about the existential risk that artificial intelligence poses to humanity -- that somehow the AIs will rise up and destroy us or become our overlords. In The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking (Oxford UP), Shannon Vallor argues that the actual, and very alarming, existential risk of…

1
Aram Sinnreich and Jesse Gilbert, "The Secret Life of Data: Navigating Hype and Uncertainty in the Age of Algorithmic Surveillance" (MIT Press, 2024) 39:27

3d ago39:27

39:27

What is data, and why does it matter for us to care about the data traces we leave behind? What are the implications for our lives of how this data is used by other people in other times and places? In a conversation with Joanne Kuai, authors Aram Sinnreich and Jesse Gilbert introduce their new book and talk about how we can rethink our relationshi…

1
Laura Robson, "Human Capital: A History of Putting Refugees to Work" (Verso, 2023) 51:01

4d ago51:01

51:01

When Americans and other citizens of advanced capitalist countries think of humanitarianism, they think of charitable efforts to help people displaced by war, disaster, and oppression find new homes where they can live complete lives. However, as the historian Laura Robson argues in her book Human Capital: A History of Putting Refugees to Work (Ver…

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

5d 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
Avgi Saketopoulou, "Sexuality Beyond Consent: Risk, Race, Traumatophilia" (NYU Press, 2023) 1:08:26

5d ago1:08:26

1:08:26

Today I talked to Avgi Saketopoulou about her book Sexuality Beyond Consent: Risk, Race, Traumatophilia (NYU Press, 2023). My conversation with Dr. Saketopoulou begins in the clinic “one of the most scary and difficult places one can find oneself in” she says because it is in the consulting room that sometimes things “become traumatic for the first…

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

5d 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
Donna Drucker, "Contraception: A Concise History" (The MIT Press, 2020) 23:53

5d 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
Donna Drucker, "Contraception: A Concise History" (The MIT Press, 2020) 23:53

5d 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
Alan Lightman, "Einstein's Dreams" (Vintage, 1992) 55:06

11d 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
Darshana Sreedhar Mini, "Rated A: Soft-Porn Cinema and Mediations of Desire in India" (U California Press, 2024) 1:21:40

10d ago1:21:40

1:21:40

In the 1990s, India's mediascape saw the efflorescence of edgy soft-porn films in the Malayalam-speaking state of Kerala. In Rated A: Soft-Porn Cinema and Mediations of Desire in India (U California Press, 2024), Darshana Sreedhar Mini examines the local and transnational influences that shaped Malayalam soft-porn cinema—such as vernacular pulp fic…

1
Sandra Hirsh, "Library 2035: Imagining the Next Generation of Libraries" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024) 56:30

6d ago56:30

56:30

Building on the success and impact of Library 2020: Today’s Leading Visionaries Describe Tomorrow’s Library by Joseph Janes, Library 2035: Imagining the Next Generation of Libraries (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024) edited by Sandra Hirshupdates, expands upon, and broadens the discussions on the future of libraries and the ways in which they transform i…

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

6d 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

11d 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
Jeremy Black, "A World History of Rail: From the Steam Regime to Today" (Amberley Publishing, 2023) 22:17

7d ago22:17

22:17

There were 20,000 miles of railways in 1865 and about a million by 2020. Scale has always been a key theme in railway history. In the First World War, the London and North West Railway transported 325,000 miles of barbed wire and over twelve million pairs of army boots. At the end of the twentieth century, Indian Railways sold 4.5 billion tickets a…

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

8d 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

8d 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
Tara Ward, "Appreciation Post: Towards an Art History of Instagram" (U California Press, 2024) 42:14

8d ago42:14

42:14

What does an art history of Instagram look like? Appreciation Post: Towards an Art History of Instagram (University of California Press, 2024) by Dr. Tara Ward reveals how Instagram shifts long-established ways of interacting with images. Dr. Ward argues Instagram is a structure of the visual, which includes not just the process of looking, but wha…

1
Eve Herold, "Robots and the People Who Love Them: Holding on to Our Humanity in an Age of Social Robots" (St. Martin's Press, 2024) 51:00

9d ago51:00

51:00

The latest developments in robotics and artificial intelligence and a preview of the coming decades, based on research and interviews with the world's foremost experts. If there’s one universal trait among humans, it’s our social nature. The craving to connect is universal, compelling, and frequently irresistible. This concept is central to Robots …

1
Ailbhe O'Loughlin, "Law and Personality Disorder: Human Rights, Human Risks, and Rehabilitation" (Oxford UP, 2024) 1:07:49

10d ago1:07:49

1:07:49

In Law and Personality Disorder: Human Rights, Human Risks, and Rehabilitation (Oxford UP, 2024), Dr Ailbhe O'Loughlin considers the controversial and under-researched concern of what to do with dangerous people with severe personality disorders. She brings together scientific evidence, law and policy, to consider risk prevention, public security a…

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

11d 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…

Podcasts Worth a Listen

The Mit Press Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Quick Reference Guide