Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchPatrick T. Reardon, "The Loop: The 'L' Tracks That Shaped and Saved Chicago" (Southern Illinois UP, 2020)
Episode 48
Every day Chicagoans rely on the loop of elevated train tracks to get to their jobs, classrooms, or homes in the city’s downtown. But how much do the…
1 year, 5 months ago
Frederick Crews, "Freud: The Making of an Illusion" (Picador, 2018)
Episode 141
The figure of Sigmund Freud has captivated the Western imagination like few others. One hundred and twenty-five years after the publication of Studie…
1 year, 5 months ago
Charles Foster, "Being a Human: Adventures in Forty Thousand Years of Consciousness" (Metropolitan Books, 2021)
Episode 139
How did humans come to be who we are? In his marvelous, eccentric, and widely lauded book Being a Beast, legal scholar, veterinary surgeon, and natur…
1 year, 6 months ago
Michael Bresalier, "Modern Flu: British Medical Science and the Viralisation of Influenza, 1890-1950" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)
Episode 228
Ninety years after the discovery of human influenza virus, Modern Flu: British Medical Science and the Viralisation of Influenza, 1890—1950 (Palgrave…
1 year, 6 months ago
AI: How We Got Here in Three Powerful Tales
Episode 21
This episode is based upon three readings:
Alan Turing’s Computing Machinery and Intelligence aka The Turing Test paper. Turing starts his paper by a…1 year, 6 months ago
Matt Beane, "The Skill Code: How to Save Human Ability in an Age of Intelligent Machines" (HarperCollins, 2024)
Episode 86
As part of our informal series on artificial intelligence, Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Matt Beane, Assistant Professor of Technolog…
1 year, 6 months ago
Josh Spodek, "Sustainability Simplified: The Definitive Guide to Solving All (Yes, All) Our Environmental Problems" (Amplify, 2025)
Episode 752
Josh Spodek disconnected his Manhattan apartment from the electric grid in May 2022. Over time, he has reduced his consumption and contribution to la…
1 year, 6 months ago
Nick Couldry, "The Space of the World: Can Human Solidarity Survive Social Media and What If It Can't?" (Polity, 2024)
Episode 198
Is human solidarity achievable in a world dominated by continuous digital connectivity and commercially managed platforms? And what if it’s not? Prof…
1 year, 6 months ago
Lindsay Weinberg, "Smart University: Student Surveillance in the Digital Age" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024)
Episode 77
In Smart University: Student Surveillance in the Digital Age (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024), Lindsay Weinberg evaluates how this latest era o…
1 year, 6 months ago
Julien Mailland, "The Game That Never Ends: How Lawyers Shape the Videogame Industry" (MIT Press, 2024)
Episode 28
A guide to the fascinating legal history of the videogame industry, written for nonlawyers.
Why did a judge recall FIFA 15, a nonviolent soccer game,…
1 year, 6 months ago