Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchJames Hannam, "The Globe: How the Earth Became Round" (Reaktion Books, 2023)
Episode 1330
In The Globe: How the Earth Became Round (Reaktion, 2023), Dr. James Hannam presents a history of how we came to know that the earth is round, rather…
2 years, 10 months ago
Lars de Wildt, "The Pop Theology of Videogames: Producing and Playing with Religion" (Amsterdam UP, 2023)
Episode 202
Young people in the West are more likely to encounter religion in videogames than in places of worship like churches, mosques or temples. Lars de Wil…
2 years, 10 months ago
Works of Game: On the Aesthetics of Games and Art
Episode 112
Games and art have intersected at least since the early twentieth century, as can be seen in the Surrealists' use of Exquisite Corpse and other games…
2 years, 10 months ago
Catherine Carstairs, "The Smile Gap: A History of Oral Health and Social Inequality" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2022)
Episode 201
As recently as fifty years ago most people expected to lose their teeth as they aged. Few children benefited from braces to straighten their teeth, a…
2 years, 10 months ago
John L. Rudolph, "Why We Teach Science (and Why We Should)" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Episode 129
Today I talked to John L. Rudolph about his book Why We Teach Science (and Why We Should) (Oxford UP, 2023).
Few people question the importance of sci…
2 years, 10 months ago
The Future of Venture Capitalists: A Discussion with Sebastian Mallaby
Episode 66
By providing capital to back the ideas and efforts of others, venture capitalists can make absurd amounts of money. But there is another way of looki…
2 years, 10 months ago
The History of the American Shopping Mall and Its Cultures
Episode 50
Writer and design critic Alexandra Lange talks about her book, Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Shopping Mall (Bloombury, 2023), wit…
2 years, 10 months ago
David A. Banks, "The City Authentic: How the Attention Economy Builds Urban America" (U California Press, 2023)
Episode 297
The City Authentic: How the Attention Economy Builds Urban America (U California Press, 2023) is the first book to explore how our cities gentrify by…
2 years, 10 months ago
Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa, "The Celluloid Specimen: Moving Image Research into Animal Life" (U California Press, 2023)
Episode 53
In The Celluloid Specimen: Moving Image Research into Animal Life (U of California Press, 2023), Benjamín Schultz‑Figueroa examines rarely seen behav…
2 years, 10 months ago
Chris Manias, "The Age of Mammals: Nature, Development, and Paleontology in the Long Nineteenth Century" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2023)
Episode 344
When people today hear "paleontology," they immediately think of dinosaurs. But for much of the history of the discipline, dramatic demonstrations of…
2 years, 10 months ago