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 deviants―neither scientifically nor clinica...
24 Jan 202040min
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 urban-dweller. But what are the possible drawbac...
20 Jan 202033min
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 will be developed in the not-too-distant fu...
9 Jan 20201h 8min
Axel Seemann, "The Shared World: Perceptual Knowledge, Demonstrative Communication, and Social Space" (MIT Press, 2019)
Much of what we are able to accomplish in our day-to-day lives depends on the ability to act and think in concert with others. Often this involves not only the capacity to perceive together the surrou...
1 Okt 20191h 4min
Elizabeth Otto, "Haunted Bauhaus: Occult Spirituality, Gender Fluidity, Queer Identities, and Radical Politics" (MIT Press, 2019)
In this segment of New Books in History, Jana Byars talks with Elizabeth “Libby” Otto, Associate Professor of Art History and Visual Studies and Executive Director of the Humanities Institute at the U...
6 Aug 20191h 14min
Robert Atkinson and Michael Lind, "Big is Beautiful: Debunking the Myth of Small Business" (MIT Press, 2018)
Small is beautiful, right? Isn't that what we've all been taught? From Jeffersonian politics to the hallowed family farm, from craft breweries to tech start ups in the garage. Small business is the en...
19 Jul 201946min
David Bissell, "Transit Life: How Commuting Is Transforming Our Cities" (MIT Press, 2018)
What kind of time do we endure on our daily commutes? What kind of space do we occupy? What new sorts of urbanites do we thereby become? In Transit Life: How Commuting Is Transforming Our Cities (MIT ...
20 Mai 20191h 4min
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 most of it is accessible to anyone who survi...
2 Mai 201953min
