Episodios

  • Jessica Smith on Engineering and Public Accountability in Energy Industries

    Jessica Smith on Engineering and Public Accountability in Energy Industries
    May 5 2025
    Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks to Jessica Smith, Professor in the Engineering, Design, and Society Department and Dean’s Fellow for Earth and Society Programs of the Colorado School of Mines, about her work on engineering and public accountability in energy and mining industries. The pair discuss Smith’s long-held interests in mining and extractive industries, including her roots in coal country; her book, Extracting Accountability: Engineers and Corporate Social Responsibility (MIT Press, 2021); her current work on the social and community dimensions of carbon sequestration projects; and many asides about what it takes to study the social dimensions of engineering, including in humanities and social sciences cultures that contain many negative stereotypes of engineers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h y 10 m
  • Lauren E. Bridges on Fantasies and Realities of Digital Transformation and the Data Center Industry

    Lauren E. Bridges on Fantasies and Realities of Digital Transformation and the Data Center Industry
    Apr 22 2025
    Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Lauren Bridges, Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia, about her work on the political, economic, and environmental politics of big data infrastructures. They focus on some of Bridges’ work on the disconnect between the promises made to localities around digital transformation and the realities of data center power demands and other material factors. They also discuss Bridges’ other projects, including “Geographies of Digital Wasting,” a global collaborative project, which Bridges was co-PI on, tracing the global flows and practices of digital wasting throughout the tech supply chain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h y 15 m
  • Jeremy Braddock on "Firesign: The Electromagnetic History of Everything as Told on Nine Comedy Albums"

    Jeremy Braddock on "Firesign: The Electromagnetic History of Everything as Told on Nine Comedy Albums"
    Apr 7 2025
    Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Jeremy Braddock, Associate Professor of Literatures in English and Coordinator of the Media Studies Initiative at Cornell University, about his book, Firesign: The Electromagnetic History of Everything as Told on Nine Comedy Albums. The book explores themes of media and technology through nine albums made by Firesign Theatre, an experimental, surrealistic comedy troupe formed in the mid-1960s that created art across several media forms. The theme of “technology” comes into the story in several ways, but the two major ones explored in this episode are that Firesign routinely experimented with new media technologies and that the troupe regularly explored how technologies, especially media technologies, were affecting society. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h y 10 m
  • Jeffrey Lee Funk on Unicorns, Hype, and Bubbles

    Jeffrey Lee Funk on Unicorns, Hype, and Bubbles
    Mar 24 2025
    Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with retired professor, consultant, Discovery Institute fellow, and a winner of the NTT DoCoMo Mobile Science Award, Jeffrey Lee Funk, about his recent book Unicorns, Hype, and Bubbles: A Guide to Spotting, Avoiding, and Exploiting Investment Bubbles in Tech (Harriman House, 2024). The book provides readers with fundamental tools for exploring technology markets and spotting financial bubbles, which have been recurring at a high rate in recent decades. In addition to talking through the basic perspectives the book provides, Vinsel and Funk also talk through examples of recent technology bubbles, including the likely current bubble centered on generative AI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    59 m
  • Eleni Kalantidou on Design, Repairability, and Cultures of Repair

    Eleni Kalantidou on Design, Repairability, and Cultures of Repair
    Mar 10 2025
    Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Eleni Kalantidou, Assistant Professor at the Queensland College of Art and Design, about the volume of essays, Design/Repair: Place, Practice, and Community (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023), which Eleni co-edited with Abby Mellick Lopes, Alison Gill, Guy Keulemans, and Niklavs Rubenis. The volume examines both the relationship of design practices to repair and repairability and the kinds of cultures needed to develop sustainable repair practices the world over. Eleni is also the author of the recent book, Introduction to Design Psychology. Eleni respectfully acknowledges the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the Yugara and Turrabal land on which she lives, and pays her respects to Indigenous Elders, past and present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h
  • Aure Schrock on Politics Recoded: The Infrastructural Organizing of Code for America

    Aure Schrock on Politics Recoded: The Infrastructural Organizing of Code for America
    Feb 24 2025
    Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Aure Schrock, an interdisciplinary technology scholar and writing coach and editor at Indelible Voice, about their book, Politics Recoded: The Infrastructural Organizing of Code for America (MIT Press, 2024) Politics Recoded examines the history and culture of Code for America, an organization that, as one of its leaders put it, aimed “to promote ‘civic hacking,’ and to bring 21st century technology to government.” The book describes how the organization has changed over time from a “tech-forward” vision rooted in techno-libertarianism to an organization that provides something like digital consulting services to governments. The pair also talk about Aure’s writing and editing company, the Indelible Voice, and what it’s like helping scholars refine their vision and voice in academic writing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h y 36 m
  • Gabriella Coleman on Hackers Cultures (Plural!)

    Gabriella Coleman on Hackers Cultures (Plural!)
    Feb 10 2025
    Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, and guest host, Paula Bialski, Associate Professor for Digital Sociology at the University of St. Gallen in St. Gallen, Switzerland, interview Gabriella Coleman, Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University, about her long career studying hacker cultures. Topics include how hacking has changed over time, the different colored “hats” used to describe different hacker ethoses, the aesthetic dimensions of hacking including how poorly written code leads to moral outrage, and how Biella may soon found a new field of Critical Mold Studies. Professor Coleman’s books include Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking and Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous. Professor Bialski, a former P&T guest, is the author of Middletech: Software Work and the Culture of Good Enough. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h y 27 m
  • Marshall Poe on the New Books Network, Technology, and the Future of Academic Communication

    Marshall Poe on the New Books Network, Technology, and the Future of Academic Communication
    Jan 27 2025
    Peoples and Things host, Lee Vinsel, is joined by guest host and Peoples & Things producer, Joe Forte, Media Projects Manager with Virginia Tech Publishing, in interviewing Marshall Poe, the founder and editor of the New Books Network, the largest academic podcasting platform in the world. The trio discuss how the New Books Network came to be; how digital technologies open up new tools for academic work; changing media landscapes, including the recent bursting of a podcasting bubble; and the future of academic communication and publishing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h y 20 m
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