Podcast Episodes

James W. Cortada, "Beyond the Facts: Tacit Knowledge and the Hidden Infrastructure of Our Informed Times" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

Beyond the Facts: Tacit Knowledge and the Hidden Infrastructure of Our Informed Times (Bloomsbury, 2025) describes tacit knowledge, what it is, how i…

1 month ago

Emily Sneff, "When the Declaration of Independence Was News" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Amy Weitzman interviews Emily Sneff on her new book When the Declaration of Independence Was News and the graduate school experience.

In 1776 people …

1 month ago

Paulina Banas, "Visualizing Egypt: European Travel, Book Publishing, and the Commercialization of the Middle East in the Nineteenth Century" (American University in Cairo Press, 2025)

Following Napoleon Bonaparte’s 1798 campaign in Egypt, new possibilities of travel and improvements in printing technology saw an emergence of publis…

1 month ago

Eric O Silva, "Contested Realities and Identity Destigmatization: Identity Construction in the Culture Wars" (De Gruyter, 2026)

Much scholarship has sought to decode the polarization of American culture. Eric O Silva's analysis of the public discourse on contested realities (i…

1 month ago

Siri Carpenter on Why She Self-Published First — and How It Led to a Traditional Book Deal

What does it take to turn a self-published book into a traditional publishing deal? Science writer Siri Carpenter — executive director of The Open No…

1 month, 1 week ago

Lana Swartz on Digital Money and Digital Cultures of Money

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Lana Swartz, Associate Professor of Media Studies and Shannon Mid-Career at the University of Virginia,…

1 month, 1 week ago

Daniel L. Gardner, "Thresholds of Digital Gameplay" (MIT Press, 2025)

Contemporary digital gameplay is only accessible by navigating an ecosystem of interfaces that support its computational nature. Account logins, c…

1 month, 2 weeks ago

Stefan Höltgen et al., "Commodore 64: Past, Present, and Future of a Home Computer" (Projekt Verlag, 2026)

The Commodore 64 is the most significant computer of its era. From 1982 to 1994, a total of 27 million units were sold—more than any other computer fr…

1 month, 2 weeks ago

Hector Amaya, "The Economy of Anonymity: Power in the Age of Identification" (Stanford UP 2026)

We use avatars to play video games. We use pseudonyms on social media. We use VPNs to mask our identities and activities. In the digital realm, ano…

1 month, 3 weeks ago

Laura B. McGrath, "Middlemen: Literary Agents and the Making of American Fiction" (Princeton UP, 2026)

In this interview, we speak with Laura B. McGrath, an Assistant Professor of English at Temple University and the author of Middlemen: Literary Agent…

1 month, 3 weeks ago