Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchHaley Cohen Gilliland, "A Flower Traveled in My Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children" (Simon & Schuster, 2025)
In the early hours of March 24, 1976, the streets of Buenos Aires rumble with tanks as soldiers seize the presidential palace and topple Argentina’s …
9 months, 2 weeks ago
Chris Bernhardt, "Beautiful Math: The Surprisingly Simple Ideas behind the Digital Revolution in How We Live, Work, and Communicate" (MIT Press, 2024)
Most of us know something about the grand theories of physics that transformed our views of the universe at the start of the twentieth century: quant…
9 months, 2 weeks ago
Andréa Becker, "Get It Out: On the Politics of Hysterectomy" (NYU Press, 2025)
At least one hysterectomy is performed every minute of the year, making it the most common gynecological surgery worldwide. By the age of sixty-five,…
9 months, 2 weeks ago
Savannah Mandel on an Argument for the End of Human Space Exploration
Episode 100
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with space anthropologist, writer, and Virginia Tech doctoral candidate, Savannah Mandel, about her book, Gr…
9 months, 2 weeks ago
Emma Marris, "Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Non-Human World" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
Episode 295
In Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Non-Human World (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021), Emma Marris wrestles with big ethical questions facing t…
9 months, 2 weeks ago
David S. Wall, "Cybercrime: The Transformation of Crime in the Information Age" (Polity, 2024)
Episode 148
How has the digital revolution transformed criminal opportunities and behaviour? What is different about cybercrime compared with traditional crimina…
9 months, 2 weeks ago
Tom Waidzunas et al., "Out Doing Science: LGBTQ STEM Professionals and Inclusion in Neoliberal Times" (UMass Press, 2025)
Episode 75
Over the past 50 years, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer professionals have organized to achieve greater inclusion into the fields of s…
9 months, 2 weeks ago
Rebecca Lemov, "The Instability of Truth: Brainwashing, Mind Control, and Hyper-Persuasion" (Norton, 2025)
Episode 146
Because brainwashing affects both the world and our observation of the world, we often don’t recognize it while it’s happening—unless we know where t…
9 months, 2 weeks ago
Phil Tiemeyer, "Women and the Jet Age: A Global History of Aviation and Flight Attendants" (Cornell UP, 2025)
Women and the Jet Age: A Global History of Aviation and Flight Attendants (Cornell University Press, 2025) is a global history of postwar aviation th…
9 months, 2 weeks ago
Edward Tenner, "Why the Hindenburg Had a Smoking Lounge: Essays in Unintended Consequences" (APS Press, 2025)
How did the addition of lifeboats after the Titanic shipwreck contribute to another tragedy in Chicago harbor three years later? How efficient are wi…
9 months, 3 weeks ago