Podcast Episodes

Jeremy Stolow, "Picturing Aura: A Visual Biography" (MIT Press, 2025)

Picturing Aura: A Visual Biography (MIT Press, 2025) by Dr. Jeremy Stolow is the first book of its kind: an extended historical, anthropological, and…

10 months, 1 week ago

Trans Technologies

How can technology creates new possibilities for transgender people? How do trans experiences, in turn, create new possibilities for technology?

Tran…

10 months, 1 week ago

Violet Moller, "Inside the Stargazer's Palace: The Transformation of Science in 16th-Century Europe" (OneWorld, 2024)

In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus declared the earth revolved around the Sun, overturning centuries of scholastic presumption. A new age was coming into v…

10 months, 1 week ago

Anna Gjika, "When Rape Goes Viral: Youth and Sexual Assault in the Digital Age" (Univ of California Press, 2023)

Stories of teen sexting scandals, cyberbullying, and image-based sexual abuse have become commonplace fixtures of the digital age, with many adults s…

10 months, 1 week ago

Ben Snyder on Spy Plane: Inside Baltimore’s Surveillance Experiment

In this 100th episode (!!!) of Peoples & Things, host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Benjamin H. Snyder, Associate Professor of Sociology at Williams Colleg…

10 months, 2 weeks ago

Kean Birch, "Data Enclaves" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)

Data Enclaves (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023) focuses on our increasing dependence upon Big Tech to live, manage, and enjoy our lives. The author examines…

10 months, 2 weeks ago

Sarah Bilston, "The Lost Orchid: A Story of Victorian Plunder and Obsession" (Harvard UP, 2025)

In 1818, a curious root arrived in a small English village, tucked—seemingly by accident—in a packing case mailed from Brazil. The amateur botanist w…

10 months, 2 weeks ago

Jean J. Ryoo and Jane Margolis, "Power On!" (MIT Press, 2022)

An interview with Jean Ryoo and Jane Margolis about Power On!

A diverse group of teenage friends learn how computing can be personally and politicall…

10 months, 3 weeks ago

Beth Linker on Slouch: Posture Panic in Modern America

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with historian Beth Linker, Samuel H. Preston Endowed Term Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in th…

10 months, 4 weeks ago

Lina Pinto-García, "Maraña: War and Disease in the Jungles of Colombia" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

In Maraña: War and Disease in the Jungles of Colombia (University of Chicago Press, 2025), Lina Pinto-García delves into the relationship between war…

11 months ago