Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchFred Turner on Countercultures, Cybercultures, and Californian and Texan Ideologies
Episode 2809
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, and guest host, Paula Bialski, Associate Professor of Digital Sociology at University of St. Gallen, talk to Fred …
8 months, 1 week ago
Subodhana Wijeyeratne, "The Islands and the Stars: A History of Japan's Space Programs" (Stanford UP, 2026)
Episode 2808
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is among the six largest national space agencies in the world, along with China's CNSA, US's NASA, and …
8 months, 1 week ago
Marc Masters, "High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape" (UNC Press, 2023)
Episode 231
The cassette tape was revolutionary. Cheap, portable, and reusable, this small plastic rectangle changed music history. Make your own tapes! Trade th…
8 months, 2 weeks ago
Joe Williams, "Inequality in the Digital Economy: The Case for a Universal Basic Income" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)
Episode 2806
In this episode, Joe Williams speaks with Andrew White about how the digital economy is reshaping inequality, work, and the social contract. Drawing …
8 months, 2 weeks ago
W. Patrick McCray, "README: A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines" (MIT Press, 2025)
Episode 2805
In README: A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines (MIT Press, 2025), historian Dr. Patrick McCray argues that i…
8 months, 2 weeks ago
David King Dunaway, "A Four-Eyed World: How Glasses Changed the Way We See" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
Episode 2804
Eyeglasses have become so commonplace we hardly think about them—unless we can’t find them. Yet glasses have been controversial throughout history. R…
8 months, 2 weeks ago
Ted Striphas, "Algorithmic Culture Before the Internet" (Columbia UP, 2023)
Episode 2803
In this episode, Ted Striphas, Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera and Alex Rivera Cartagena discuss Algorithmic Culture Before the Internet (Columbia University P…
8 months, 2 weeks ago
Vanessa Rampton, "Making Medical Progress: History of a Contested Idea" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Episode 2802
Answers to the question 'what is medical progress?' have always been contested, and any one response is always bound up with contextual ideas of pers…
8 months, 3 weeks ago
Javiera Barandiaran, "Living Minerals: Nature, Trade, and Power in the Race for Lithium" (MIT Press, 2026)
Episode 400
A sobering investigation of the rush for lithium for electric vehicles, the problematic history of lithium mining, and the consequences for sustainab…
8 months, 3 weeks ago
Howard Alan Israel, "Nazi Anatomy Lessons: A Dissection of Evil" (Vallentine Mitchell, 2026)
Episode 712
What if the tools that shaped your life’s work were rooted in unimaginable evil?
In this haunting episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with Dr. Howard …
8 months, 3 weeks ago