The MIT Press Podcast
584 episodes - English - Latest episode: 23 days ago - ★★★★ - 3 ratingsInterviews with authors of MIT Press books.
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Episodes
Spatial Computing
April 29, 2023 08:00 - 32 minutesShashi Shekhar and Pamela Vold, authors of Spatial Computing, from The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, discuss the reach, risks and importance of spatial computing in confronting COVID-19. An accessible guide to the ideas and technologies underlying such applications as GPS, Google Maps, Pokémon Go, ride-sharing, driverless cars, and drone surveillance. Billions of people around the globe use various applications of spatial computing daily--by using a ride-sharing app, GPS, the e911 sy...
Macs Smith, "Paris and the Parasite: Noise, Health, and Politics in the Media City" (MIT Press, 2021)
April 29, 2023 08:00 - 1 hourThe social consequences of anti-parasitic urbanism, as efforts to expunge supposedly biological parasites penalize those viewed as social parasites. According to French philosopher Michel Serres, ordered systems are founded on the pathologization of parasites, which can never be fully expelled. In Paris and the Parasite: Noise, Health, and Politics in the Media City (MIT Press, 2021), Macs Smith extends Serres's approach to Paris as a mediatic city, asking what organisms, people, and forms o...
High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies
April 28, 2023 08:00 - 55 minutesAuthor of High Weirdness, Erik Davis discusses psychedelic politics, media paranoia, conspiracy theories, and consensus reality in the time of COVID-19. A study of the spiritual provocations to be found in the work of Philip K. Dick, Terence McKenna, and Robert Anton Wilson, High Weirdness charts the emergence of a new psychedelic spirituality that arose from the American counterculture of the 1970s. These three authors changed the way millions of readers thought, dreamed, and experienced rea...
Extraterrestrials
April 27, 2023 08:00 - 16 minutesAn interview with Wade Roush, author of Extraterrestrials, from The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series. Are we alone in the universe? If not, where is everybody? And which might be more meaningful? Soundtrack produced by artist and author of High Static, Dead Lines (Strange Attractor Press, December 2018) Kristen Gallerneaux. Everything we know about how planets form and how life arises suggests that human civilization on Earth should not be unique. We ought to see abundant evidence of extr...
The History of Contraception
April 26, 2023 08:00 - 15 minutesAn interview with Donna J. Drucker, author of Contraception, from The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series. We discuss reproductive justice, the history of contraceptive technology and how the future of contraception can offer more choice and more freedom for every kind of person. The development, manufacturing, and use of contraceptive methods from the late nineteenth century to the present, viewed from the perspective of reproductive justice. The beginning of the modern contraceptive era be...
Technologies of the Human Corpse
April 25, 2023 08:00 - 32 minutesIn this episode we hear from John Troyer, author of Technologies of the Human Corpse and the Director of The Center for Death and Society at The University of Bath. We discuss the way technology is blurring the distinctions between life and death, the emergence of death studies from the 70s social and political milieu and how his own experiences of bereavement inform his research. The relationship of the dead body with technology through history, from nineteenth-century embalming machines to ...
Haunted Bauhaus: Occult Spirituality, Gender Fluidity, Queer Identities, and Radical Politics
April 24, 2023 08:00 - 32 minutesIn this podcast we discuss visibility, haunting and fascism with art historian and theorist Elizabeth Otto. Otto's book Haunted Bauhaus explores the marginalized histories of occult spirituality, gender fluidity and queer identity within the Bauhaus; offering fresh insight into one of the most canonized periods of European art history. The Bauhaus (1919–1933) is widely regarded as the twentieth century's most influential art, architecture, and design school, celebrated as the archetypal movem...
Free Will as an Open Scientific Problem
April 23, 2023 08:00 - 14 minutesA discussion with the the author of Free Will (from The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series) and Free Will as an Open Scientific Problem, Mark Balaguer, in which we discuss the scientific arguments for and against the possibility of free will. In this largely antimetaphysical treatment of free will and determinism, Mark Balaguer argues that the philosophical problem of free will boils down to an open scientific question about the causal histories of certain kinds of neural events. In the cou...
"Global Environmental Politics" Celebrates 20 Years of Success
April 22, 2023 08:00 - 19 minutesThe journal of Global Environmental Politics (GEP) has hit a tremendous milestone in 2020—celebrating its 20 years of publication with the MIT Press! In this episode, two of the journal’s Co-Editors Matthew Hoffmann and Erika Weinthal reflect on the origins and goals of GEP, its immeasurable impact on the discussions of relationships between global political forces and environmental change, and the thought process behind the journal’s upcoming 20th-anniversary volume.
Citizenship
April 21, 2023 08:00 - 11 minutesA discussion with the the author of Citizenship (from The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series), Dimitry Kochenov, in which we discuss the glorification of citizenship and the structures of power underlying this supposedly positive concept. Featuring an incredible new soundtrack produced by artists and author of High Static, Dead Lines (Strange Attractor Press, December 2018) Kristen Gallerneaux. The glorification of citizenship is a given in today's world, part of a civic narrative that invo...
Quantitative Science Studies: A Discussion with Editor-in-Chief Ludo Waltman
April 20, 2023 08:00 - 17 minutesQuantitative Science Studies (QSS) is a newly launched open access journal that was born out of a collaboration between the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics (ISSI) and the MIT Press. In this episode, Editor-in-Chief Ludo Waltman discusses the origins of QSS, its growing inaugural issue, and its future as a publishing outlet run for and by the scientometric community.
Strong Ideas from MIT Libraries and the MIT Press
April 19, 2023 08:00 - 17 minutesIn this episode, Gita Manaktala, Editorial Director at the MIT Press, and Ellen Finnie, Co-Interim Associate Director for Collections at MIT Libraries, discuss the Ideas series: a hybrid print and open access book series for general readers, that provides fresh, strongly argued, and provocative views of the effects of digital technology on culture, business, government, education, and our lives. Learn more about the full series here.
Experiments in Open Peer Review
April 18, 2023 08:00 - 22 minutesThe authors of Data Feminism (2020), Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren Klein, along with Catherine Ahearn, Content Lead at PubPub, discuss the value and process of open peer review, share experiences and best practices, and explore issues surrounding peer review transparency.
How Attention Works: Finding Your Way in a World Full of Distraction
April 17, 2023 08:00 - 14 minutesStefan Van der Stigchel discusses how we filter out what is irrelevant so we can focus on what we need to know. We are surrounded by a world rich with visual information, but we pay attention to very little of it, filtering out what is irrelevant so we can focus on what we think we need to know. Advertisers, web designers, and other "attention architects" try hard to get our attention, promoting products with videos on huge outdoor screens, adding flashing banners to websites, and developing ...
The Garage: A History
April 16, 2023 08:00 - 25 minutesOn this episode of the MIT Press podcast, Olivia Erlanger and Luis Ortega Govela discuss their book, Garage. Frank Lloyd Wright invented the garage when he moved the automobile out of the stable into a room of its own. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (allegedly) started Apple Computer in a garage. Suburban men turned garages into man caves to escape from family life. Nirvana and No Doubt played their first chords as garage bands. What began as an architectural construct became a cultural constru...
The Making of "Ways of Hearing"
April 15, 2023 08:00 - 1 hourBonus to the Ways of Hearing podcast and book A behind-the-scenes conversation with the creators of Ways of Hearing, the podcast and book. Hosted by author Damon Krukowski, with Radiotopia and Showcase executive producer Julie Shapiro, sound designer Ian Coss, MIT Press editor Matthew Browne, and graphic designer James Goggin. Recorded live before a studio audience at the PRX Podcast Garage, April 9, 2019. Mixed by Ian Coss.
Alice and Bob Meet the Wall of Fire and A Prime Number Conspiracy
April 14, 2023 08:00 - 20 minutesOn this episode of the MIT Press podcast, Thomas Lin, Editor-in-Chief of Quanta Magazine, discusses the research and current climate behind the science and math in Alice and Bob Meet the Wall of Fire: The Biggest Ideas in Science from Quanta and The Prime Number Conspiracy: The Biggest Ideas in Math from Quanta.
Food Routes: Growing Bananas in Iceland and Other Tales from the Logistics of Eating
April 13, 2023 08:00 - 22 minutesOn the latest episode of The MIT Press podcast, Robyn Metcalfe, food historian and food futurist, discusses her new book, Food Routes: Growing Bananas in Iceland and Other Tales from the Logistics of Eating. Even if we think we know a lot about good and healthy food—even if we buy organic, believe in slow food, and read Eater—we probably don't know much about how food gets to the table. What happens between the farm and the kitchen? Why are all avocados from Mexico? Why does a restaurant in ...
Discussions on Open Access: Open Access Models and Experimentation
April 12, 2023 08:00 - 21 minutesAmy Brand, director of the MIT Press, and Peter Suber of Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society discuss open access models, experimentation, and the future of scholarly communication.
Discussions on Open Access: Open Science Tools
April 11, 2023 08:00 - 15 minutesJess Polka, executive director of ASAPbio, and Sam Klein of the MIT Press/MIT Media Lab’s Knowledge Futures Group (KFG) and Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society survey and explain open science initiatives and tools.
Discussions on Open Access: OA at MIT
April 10, 2023 08:00 - 17 minutesIn this episode, Nick Lindsay, Director of Journals and Open Access at the MIT Press, and Katharine Dunn, scholarly communications librarian at the MIT Libraries, discuss open access at the Institute and beyond—illuminating many issues surrounding open access and scholarly publishing present and future.
Discussions on Open Access: Frankenbook and OA Publishing
April 09, 2023 08:00 - 21 minutesIn the first of four episodes in the MITP Open Access series, Travis Rich, PubPub co-founder and project lead, speaks with Edward Finn, founding director of the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University. They discuss Frankenbook—an open access digital version of the print edition of Mary Shelley’s masterpiece Frankenstein published by the MIT Press in 2017.
“I did It for The Uplift of Humanity and The Navy”: Same-Sex Acts and The Origins of The National Security State, 1919–1921
April 08, 2023 08:00 - 18 minutesSherry Zane, Associate Director of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at the University of Connecticut, discusses her recent article, “’I did It for The Uplift of Humanity and The Navy’: Same-Sex Acts and The Origins of The National Security State, 1919–1921”, published in the June 2018 issue of The New England Quarterly. Abstract: This essay explores U.S. national security interests on the World War I home-front from 1917-1921 in Newport, Rhode Island when Assistant Secretary...
Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto
April 07, 2023 08:00 - 21 minutesMark Polizzotti translates authors from Patrick Modiano to Gustave Flaubert. In this episode, Polizzotti demystifies the process of translation and demonstrates its capacity for art. Beginning with the first translators, some 2,000 years ago--"traitors" who brought the Bible to the common public via translation--and illuminating the implications of contemporary machine translation, Polizzotti offers a riveting take on language and its elasticity. This conversation about Sympathy for the Trait...
This is My Body: Communion and Cannibalism in Colonial New England and New France
April 06, 2023 08:00 - 23 minutesCarla Cevasco, Assistant Professor of American Studies at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, discusses her recent article, "This is My Body: Communion and Cannibalism in Colonial New England and New France." Her article was published in the December 2016 issue of The New England Quarterly. Abstract: Analyzing the material culture of English, French, and Native communion ceremonies, and debates over communion and cannibalism, this article argues that peoples in the borderlands betwee...
Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power the Planet
April 05, 2023 08:00 - 23 minutesThis episode features an interview with MIT Press author Varun Sivaram about his new book Taming the Sun. Varun Sivaram is the Philip D. Reed Fellow for Science and Technology at the Council on Foreign Relations. He teaches “Clean Energy Innovation” at Georgetown University, is a Fellow at Columbia University's Center for Global Energy Policy, and serves on Stanford University's energy and environment boards. He has advised both the mayor of Los Angeles and the governor of New York on energy ...
Feeling and Smelling a Virtual Donut
April 04, 2023 08:00 - 16 minutes“…Using VR scent, touch, and sight to alter the subjective experience of taste is going to be very large project; not just an academic project but also for those in the food industry.” Does feeling and smelling donuts in a Virtual Reality setting contribute to eating less and feeling fuller? In this episode, Jeremy Bailenson, Founding Director of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University, discusses a study (recently published in Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments ...
Rhea Myers, "Proof of Work: Blockchain Provocations 2011-2021" (MIT Press, 2023)
April 03, 2023 08:00 - 1 hourNFT, BTC, DAO, ETH, WAGMI, HODL. It would have been hard to avoid these acronyms only a year ago. The hype around cryptocurrencies and blockchain art was almost as annoying as the glee with which crypto sceptics welcomed the sudden onset of the crypto winter. But for all the popularity of Bored Apes and Ponzi scheme stories, there seems to have been little serious engagement with the philosophical, political, and aesthetic implications of the blockchain. The academy appears to have dismissed ...
Moheb Costandi, "Body Am I: The New Science of Self-Consciousness" (MIT Press, 2022)
April 03, 2023 08:00 - 42 minutesHow the way we perceive our bodies plays a critical role in the way we perceive ourselves: stories of phantom limbs, rubber hands, anorexia, and other phenomena. The body is central to our sense of identity. It can be a canvas for self-expression, decorated with clothing, jewelry, cosmetics, tattoos, and piercings. But the body is more than that. Bodily awareness, says scientist-writer Moheb Costandi, is key to self-consciousness. In Body Am I: The New Science of Self-Consciousness (MIT Press...
Thresholds 46: SCATTER!
April 03, 2023 08:00 - 19 minutesAnne Graziano and Eliyahu Keller, editors of Thresholds 46: SCATTER!, talk about the mission of the journal; the making of the SCATTER! issue; the role of student journals; and how to make architectural knowledge and education more accessible. Established in 1992, Thresholds is the annual peer-reviewed journal produced by the MIT Department of Architecture. Each independently themed issue features content from leading scholars and practitioners in the fields of architecture, art, and culture....
Break on Through: Radical Psychiatry and the American Counterculture
April 02, 2023 09:00 - 32 minutesIn Break On Through, Lucas Richert explores Anti-psychiatry, psychedelics, and radical challenges to psychiatry and the conventional treatment of mental health in the 1970s. In this interview Lucas discusses the issues that run through the sixties and seventies and how they're forming debates about mental health today. "Antipsychiatry," Esalen, psychedelics, and DSM III: Radical challenges to psychiatry and the conventional treatment of mental health in the 1970s. The upheavals of the 1960s g...
Olaf Sporns on Network Neuroscience
April 02, 2023 08:00 - 13 minutesThe intersection between cutting-edge neuroscience and the emerging field of network science has been growing tremendously over the past decade. Olaf Sporns, editor of Network Neuroscience, and Distinguished Professor, Provost Professor of Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University Bloomington, discusses the applications of network science technology to neuroscience. Dr. Sporns hopes the launch of Network Neuroscience will contribute to the creation of a common langu...
The Structure of Success: How the Internal Distribution of Power Drives Armed Group Behavior and National Movement Effectiveness
April 01, 2023 08:00 - 44 minutesListen as Peter Krause and Sean Lynn-Jones discuss the key differences between united and hegemonic power and the internal structure of violent and nonviolent national movements, as outlined in Krause’s article “The Structure of Success: How the Internal Distribution of Power Drives Armed Group Behavior and National Movement Effectiveness” from International Security 38:3 (Winter 2013/14). This conversation was recorded on January 17, 2014.
Nationalism and Nature in Henry David Thoreau's "Walking”
March 31, 2023 08:00 - 42 minutesListen as Andrew Menard and Laura Dassow Walls discuss the notions of walking, wildness, nationalism, and the role of beauty in Thoreau's "Walking." This conversation was recorded on February 27, 2014. Read Andrew Menard's article, "Nationalism and the Nature of Thoreau's 'Walking.'"
Elizabeth M. Renieris, "Beyond Data: Reclaiming Human Rights at the Dawn of the Metaverse" (MIT Press, 2023)
March 31, 2023 08:00 - 22 minutesWhy laws focused on data cannot effectively protect people—and how an approach centered on human rights offers the best hope for preserving human dignity and autonomy in a cyberphysical world. Ever-pervasive technology poses a clear and present danger to human dignity and autonomy, as many have pointed out. And yet, for the past fifty years, we have been so busy protecting data that we have failed to protect people. In Beyond Data: Reclaiming Human Rights at the Dawn of the Metaverse (MIT Pre...
Water Is in the Air: Physics, Politics, and Poetics of Water in the Arts
March 30, 2023 08:00 - 32 minutesOur contributors discuss their work in the arts and sciences, which is showcased in the new article collection, Water Is in the Air: Physics, Politics, and Poetics of Water in the Arts. Water Is in the Air explores the ways that artists, from all over the world, working at the cutting edge of science and engineering, create work that addresses critical issues of water in culture and society. This conversation was recorded on March 19, 2014. Jean-Marc Chomaz, CNRS research director at the Éco...
Sybil Ludington, Material Culture, and American Mythmaking
March 29, 2023 08:00 - 30 minutesListen, my children, and you shall hear Of a lovely feminine Paul Revere... Marla R. Miller and Paula D. Hunt discuss Sybil Ludington, material culture, and American mythmaking. Although there is no primary evidence supporting Sybil’s historic ride, she has become an increasingly popular figure tied to the American Revolution. This conversation was recorded on March 30, 2015. Correction: At (28:41), it was the Connecticut NOW (National Organization for Women) that sponsored the Sybil Ludingto...
The Meaning of the Cyber Revolution: Perils to Theory and Statecraft
March 28, 2023 08:00 - 34 minutesAs Lucas Kello reveals, it is far easier to attack than to defend when it comes to cyber war. Listen as Kello and Sean Lynn-Jones discuss the dangers of cyber war, review recent cases of cyber attack, and offer security advice for policymakers. This conversation is based on Kello’s article “The Meaning of the Cyber Revolution: Perils to Theory and Statecraft,” which appears in the Fall 2013 issue of International Security (38:2). This episode was recorded on October 2, 2013.
Art and Atoms
March 27, 2023 08:00 - 53 minutesOur contributors discuss the connections between science, specifically chemistry, and art, and talk about how materials traditionally identified with science can be used to create art. This conversation was recorded on January 24, 2013. Tami Spector, Professor of Chemistry at the University of San Francisco. Philip Ball, freelance science writer, lecturer, and author of several popular science books. Kathryn de Ridder-Vignone, Post-Doctoral Research Analyst at the Center for Nanotechnology...
China's Fear of Contagion: Tiananmen Square and the Power of the European Example
March 26, 2023 08:00 - 27 minutesAs Mary Sarotte reveals in her Fall 2012 article in International Security, the actions of the Chinese government during the Tiananmen Square protests nearly split the Communist Party of China. Listen as Sarotte and International Security Editor Sean Lynn-Jones discuss internal party reactions to the event, how it affected relations between the US and China, and lessons the CCP may have learned from other Cold War-era governments. This conversation was recorded on November 20, 2012.
Arts, Humanities, and Complex Networks
March 24, 2023 08:00 - 29 minutesMaximilian Schich, Isabel Meirelles, and Roger Malina discuss the contents and creation of the new article collection, Arts, Humanities, and Complex Networks, which explores the application of the science of complex networks to art history, archeology, visual arts, the art market, and other areas of cultural importance. This conversation was recorded on April 26, 2012. Maximilian Schich, DFG fellow at László Barabási's Center for Complex Network Research in Boston. Isabel Meirelles, informa...
The Revolutionary Worlds of Lexington and Concord Compared
March 23, 2023 08:00 - 37 minutesBill Fowler, member of the editorial board of The New England Quarterly, Mary Babson Fuhrer, and Robert A. Gross discuss Fuhrer's recent NEQ article, “The Revolutionary Worlds of Lexington and Concord Compared” and Gross's 1976 book, The Minutemen and Their World. Our panelists discuss the two colonial towns, their similarities and differences, and key factors that led to the famous battles between the English and the colonists on April 19, 1775. This conversation was recorded on March 22, 2012.
Present at the Creation: Edward Mead Earle and the Depression-Era Origins of Security Studies
March 22, 2023 08:00 - 26 minutesEdward Mead Earle was a historian, scholar, professor, and international relations expert; he was also a founding father of the field we know as Security Studies. Listen as David Ekbladh and International Security Editor Sean Lynn-Jones discuss Earle's contributions to the field, his views on what Security Studies should be, his seminar at the Institute for Advanced Study, and what he might think of Security Studies today. This conversation was recorded on January 4, 2012.
Celebrating PAJ 100
March 21, 2023 08:00 - 55 minutesContributing artists to PAJ 100 recorded podcasts based on their pieces for the issue, responding to PAJ editor Bonnie Marranca's four statements on major themes Belief, Being Contemporary, Performance and Science, and Writing and Performance. Read about the contributors and themes here.
China's Century? Why America's Edge Will Endure
March 20, 2023 08:00 - 29 minutesMuch has been made of the rise of China's economy, and some fear that China will surpass the United States as the world's largest economy in the coming years. Michael Beckley goes against the grain in his article "China's Century? Why America's Edge Will Endure" (International Security, Winter 2011/12), arguing that the size of a nation's economy doesn't necessarily dictate its global power, and that the United States is not in great danger because of China's economic developments. Beckley an...
Anti-Irish Prejudice in the Trial of Dominic Daley and James Halligan (Northampton, Massachusetts, 1806)
March 19, 2023 08:00 - 29 minutesBill Fowler, member of the editorial board of The New England Quarterly, Professor Dick Brown, and Governor Michael Dukakis discuss Brown's recent NEQ article, “'Tried, Convicted, and Condemned, in Almost Every Bar-room and Barber's Shop': Anti-Irish Prejudice in the Trial of Dominic Daley and James Halligan, Northampton, Massachusetts, 1806". Our panel touches on the evolution of our judicial system, the responsibility of the policy maker in correcting errors of our past, and the role of the...
The Sharing of Sound Art
March 18, 2023 08:00 - 37 minutesIn this podcast, Claire MacDonald and Sarah Parry discuss the history of recording, the sharing of sound art between artists, how recording has shaped communities, the impact of technology on artists and their publics, and the artist's voice and the different genres it inhabits. About the Contributors: Claire MacDonald is a curator, writer, and editor whose work focuses on the intersections of performance, writing, and art. She is a founding editor of Performance Research and a contributing e...
Nicolas Collins on Leonardo Music Journal’s 20th Anniversary
March 17, 2023 08:00 - 17 minutesNicolas Collins, editor of Leonardo Music Journal and Chair of Sound at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, answered our questions about the 20th anniversary issue of LMJ. The issue's theme was improvisation. In the podcast, Nic explains how he chose the theme and shares insights about putting the issue together, as well as about how improvisation and composition have evolved during his tenure as editor of LMJ.
American Restaurants and Cuisine in the Mid–Nineteenth Century
March 16, 2023 08:00 - 28 minutesPaul Freedman, Chester D. Tripp Professor of History and Acting Chair, Department of History at Yale University, chats with Rebecca Federman, Culinary Collections Librarian at the New York Public Library. Paul provides insight into 19th-century American restaurant dining based on his recent article in The New England Quarterly, "American Restaurants and Cuisine in the Mid–Nineteenth Century" (March 2011). We hear about the most popular dishes, regional differences in menus, and which dishes c...
Mary Flanagan and Mikael Jakobsson, "Playing Oppression: The Legacy of Conquest and Empire in Colonialist Board Games" (MIT Press, 2023)
March 16, 2023 08:00 - 49 minutesPlaying Oppression: The Legacy of Conquest and Empire in Colonialist Board Games (MIT Press, 2023) by Dr. Mary Flanagan & Dr. Mikael Jakobsson is a striking analysis of popular board games' roots in imperialist reasoning—and why the future of play depends on reckoning with it. Board games conjure up images of innocuously enriching entertainment: family game nights, childhood pastimes, cooperative board games centered around resource management and strategic play. Yet in Playing Oppression, Dr...