Robert A. Wilson, “The Eugenic Mind Project” (MIT Press, 2017)
For most of us, eugenics — the “science of improving the human stock” — is a thing of the past, commonly associated with Nazi Germany and government efforts to promote a pure Aryan race. This view is ...
15 Okt 20181h 5min
Julie A. Cohn, “The Grid: Biography of an American Technology” (MIT Press, 2017)
Though usually a background concern, the aging U.S. electric grid has lately been on the minds of both legislators and consumers. Congress wants to ensure the technological security of this important ...
15 Aug 201820min
Ilene Grabel, “When Things Don’t Fall Apart: Global Financial Governance and Developmental Finance in an Age of Productive Incoherence” (MIT Press, 2017)
We spoke with Ilene Grabel, Professor at the University of Denver and Co-director of the MA program in Global Finance, Trade & Economic Integration at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies....
7 Aug 201851min
Eden Medina, “Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile” (MIT Press, 2011)
It would be difficult to argue against Stafford Beer’s Project Cybersyn as the most bold and audacious chapter in the history of cybernetics. In the early 70’s, at the invitation of leftist president,...
1 Jun 20181h 3min
Stephen Monteiro, “The Fabric of Interface: Mobile Media, Design, and Gender” (MIT Press, 2017)
Sewing, knitting, quilting, the crafts related to fabric making, are usually not what we think about when we consider our digital communications devices. Yet, many of the activities that we find ourse...
6 Apr 201826min
Alenka Zupancic, “What is Sex?” (MIT Press, 2017)
Alenka Zupancic has done the unthinkable. She has managed to write a fun and exciting book about sex with only cursory mention of things naughty. What is Sex? (MIT Press, 2017) avoids fluff, heterosex...
14 Mar 20181h 20min
Molly Wright Steenson, “Architectural Intelligence: How Designers and Architects Created the Digital Landscape” (MIT Press, 2017)
For most people the field of architecture is not what they think about when discussing artificial intelligence as we describe it today. Yet, architects are a part of the historic foundations of what w...
27 Feb 201823min
Karen Neander, “A Mark of the Mental: In Defense of Informational Teleosemantics” (MIT Press, 2017)
The two biggest problems of understanding the mind are consciousness and intentionality. The first doesn’t require introduction. The latter is the problem of how we can have thoughts and perceptions t...
15 Feb 20181h
