New Books in Science, Technology, and Society

New Books Network

Episodes

Mentioned books

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Apr 7, 2026 • 40min

David Arditi, "Music Technology Panic Narratives Beyond Piracy: From Taping to Napster to TikTok" (Anthem Press, 2026)

David Arditi, associate professor of sociology at UT Arlington and author of Music Technology Panic Narratives Beyond Piracy, traces recurring industry panics from cassettes to TikTok. He maps how formats, licensing fights, and platform shifts reshape promotion, song length, and who profits. Short, clear takes on home taping, Napster, streaming economics, YouTube, and TikTok's role in music culture.
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Apr 6, 2026 • 48min

Douglas H. Erwin, "The Origins of the New: Novelty and Innovation in the History of Life, Culture, and Technology" (Princeton UP, 2026)

Douglas H. Erwin, retired Smithsonian paleobiologist and Santa Fe Institute researcher, explores how novelty arises and when it becomes lasting innovation. He contrasts origin versus success, presents a four-phase model (potentiation, novelty, refinement, innovation), and applies it to biology, culture, and technology. He also discusses contingency, network restructuring, and the role of public goods in creating new opportunity spaces.
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Apr 5, 2026 • 1h 1min

Tim Altenhof, "Breathing Space: The Architecture of Pneumatic Beings" (Zone Books, 2026)

Tim Altenhof, architect, historian, and author of Breathing Space, explores how breathing shapes bodies and buildings. He traces 19th-century air debates, ventilation in factories and hospitals, modernists’ lung metaphors, sanatoria design, and breath training at the Bauhaus. The conversation maps a cultural history of pneumatic awareness and architectural responses to air, disease, and porosity.
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Apr 4, 2026 • 44min

Eivind Røssaak, "The Cory Arcangel Hack: Digital Culture and Aesthetic Practice" (MIT Press, 2025)

Eivind Røssaak, research professor at the National Library of Norway who studies visual media and media history. He traces Cory Arcangel’s DIY hacks as technical pranks that critique platform capitalism. Short takes cover Arcangel’s flow-break, flow-remix, and flow-parody strategies, his lecture-performances, and how small code interventions reshape digital culture.
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Apr 4, 2026 • 1h 18min

Wout Saelens, "Fossil Consumerism: Energy, Ecology and Everyday Life in the Early Modern Low Countries" (Leuven UP, 2026)

Wout Saelens, an early modern historian of household energy and pollution, discusses how peat and coal reshaped warmth, light and domestic life in the Low Countries. He traces changing fireplaces, stoves and cooking practices. He examines shifting perceptions of pollution and the gendered, hidden labor that made home comforts possible.
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Apr 3, 2026 • 53min

Isabelle Held, "Atomic Bombshells: How Plastics Shaped Postwar Bodies" (Duke UP, 2026)

Isabelle Held, historian and author of Atomic Bombshells, traces how wartime plastics like nylon and silicone migrated into postwar fashion and bodies. She talks about bullet bras, foams, implants, wartime industry pivots, marketing, regulation gaps, and surprising archival finds. Short, provocative conversations about material culture, gender, and design.
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Mar 30, 2026 • 37min

Vojta Hybl, "Rocks: A Guide to the Stones Around Us and the Stories They Tell" (Frances Lincoln, 2026)

Vojta Hybl, a geologist and science illustrator, introduces his illustrated field guide to over 100 rock types. He talks about rock identification tricks, why people overlook stones, and how art can reconnect us to geology. Short, vivid stories cover igneous diversity, volcaniclastic rocks, sedimentary records, metamorphism, anthropic stones, and glacial ice.
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Mar 30, 2026 • 1h 1min

Ben Collier on Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy

Paula Bialski, Associate Professor of Digital Sociology who probes hacking cultures and digital communities. Ben Collier, Senior Lecturer and author studying anonymity, infrastructure, and digital maintenance. They unpack what Tor is and how it works. They trace Tor’s origins and the varied politics within its community. They explore who runs relays, why ordinary people use Tor, and where Tor might go next.
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Mar 30, 2026 • 1h 6min

Caste and Tech with Murali Shanmugavelan and Sareeta Amrute

Murali Shanmugavelan, researcher in caste, media, and digital infrastructures, and Sareeta Amrute, scholar of race, caste, labor in global tech, discuss how caste shapes IT workspaces and communication systems. They tackle tech’s myth of being neutral. They explore AI biases that erase non-dominant cultures, gaps in moderation of caste hate, and tensions between visibility and safety in anticaste efforts.
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Mar 23, 2026 • 44min

Steffan Blayney, "Health and Efficiency: Fatigue, the Science of Work, and the Making of the Working-Class Body" (Activist Studies of Science, 2022)

Steffan Blayney, historian and former Wellcome Trust Research Fellow, studies how health was reframed around worker efficiency in Britain. He explores how bodies were modeled as machines, fatigue became a pathology, and efficiency logic spread into culture and labor practices. The conversation links these histories to modern tech, wellness culture, and moments of worker resistance.

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