Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchA.I. and Practice with Stuart Baldwin
Episode 113
The technological revolution we are facing today is artificial intelligence. At least this is what we are told. Those doing the telling include tech …
2 years, 5 months ago
Can You Fall in Love with ChatGPT?
Episode 4
The University of Connecticut Humanities Institute recently sponsored a panel discussion on the topic, “Can you fall in love with ChatGPT?” and we re…
2 years, 5 months ago
Aarathi Prasad, "Silk: A History in Three Metamorphoses" (William Collins, 2023)
Episode 160
Silk—a luxury fabric, a valuable trade good, and a scientific marvel. This material, created by the bombyx mori silkworm, has captivated artisans for…
2 years, 5 months ago
The Future of Crucial Materials: A Discussion with Ed Conway
Episode 85
Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium. These fundamental materials have created empires, razed civilizations, and fed our ingenuity and greed fo…
2 years, 5 months ago
Jordan Frith, "Barcode" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Episode 71
Barcodes are about as ordinary as an object can be. Billions of them are scanned each day and they impact everything from how we shop to how we trave…
2 years, 5 months ago
Colin McFarlane, "Waste and the City: The Crisis of Sanitation and the Right to Citylife" (Verso, 2023)
Episode 322
In an age of pandemics the relationship between the health of the city and good sanitation has never been more important. Colin McFarlane, through Wa…
2 years, 5 months ago
Dannagal Goldthwaite Young, "Wrong: How Media, Politics, and Identity Drive Our Appetite for Misinformation" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023)
Episode 683
Over the past 40 years, lawmakers in America's two major political parties have taken increasingly extreme positions on ideological issues. Voters fr…
2 years, 5 months ago
Peter Nelson, "Computer Games As Landscape Art" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)
Episode 1
Peter Nelson's book Computer Games As Landscape Art (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) proposes that computer games are the paradigmatic form of contemporary…
2 years, 5 months ago
Jeremy Howick, "The Power of Placebos: Unlocking Their Potential to Improve Health Care" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023)
Episode 105
Should your doctor prescribe a placebo for you, instead of conventional medicine? And if she did, would it work? Is the double-blind placebo-controll…
2 years, 5 months ago
Megan Nutzman, "Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual Healing in Roman and Late Antique Palestine" (Edinburgh UP, 2022)
Episode 19
In the ancient Mediterranean world, individuals routinely looked for divine aid to cure physical afflictions. Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual He…
2 years, 5 months ago