New Books in Science, Technology, and Society

Latest Episodes:

Surekha Davies, "Humans: A Monstrous History" (U California Press, 2025) Mar 23, 2025

Show notes

Monsters are central to how we think about the human condition. Join award-winning historian of science in Humans: A Monstrous History (University of California Press, 2025) by Dr. Surekha Davies as she reveals how people have defined the human in relation to everything from apes to zombies, and how they invented race, gender, and nations along the way. With rich, evocative storytelling that braids together ancient gods and generative AI, Frankenstein's monster and E.T., Humans: A Monstrous History shows how monster-making is about control: it defines who gets to count as normal.

In an age when corporations increasingly see people as obstacles to profits, this book traces the long, volatile history of monster-making and charts a better path for the future. The result is a profound, effervescent, empowering retelling of the history of the world for anyone who wants to reverse rising inequality and polarization. This is not a history of monsters, but a history through monsters.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s episodes on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Richard Buttny, "Unfracked: The Struggle to Ban Fracking in New York" (U Massachusetts Press, 2024) Mar 18, 2025

Show notes

In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Richard Buttny, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Syracuse University. With a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, his research interests include environmental communication, discourse analysis, and intercultural communication. Richard's latest book,Unfracked: The Struggle to Ban Fracking in New York, was published by the University of Massachusetts Press in October 2024. About the book:

Since fracking emerged as a way of extracting natural gas, through intense deep drilling and the use of millions of gallons of water and chemicals to fracture shale, it has been controversial. It is perceived in different ways by different people--by some as an opportunity for increased resources and possibly jobs and other income; by others as a public health and environmental threat; and for many, an unknown. Richard Buttny, a scholar who works on rhetoric and discursive practices, read a story in his local paper in New York about hydrofracking coming to his area and had to research what it was, and what it could mean for his community. Soon he joined neighbors in fighting to have the practice banned state-wide. At the same time, he turned his scholarly eye to the messaging from both sides of the fight, using first-person accounts, interviews, and media coverage.

The activists fighting fracking won. New York is now the only state in the US with sizable deposits of natural gas that has banned hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Unfracked explains the competing rhetoric and discourses on fracking among New York-based advocates, experts, the grassroots, and political officials. Buttny examines how these positions evolved over time and how eventually the state arrived at a decision to ban this extractive technology. His accessible approach provides both a historical recounting of the key events of this seven-year conflict, along with four in-depth case studies: a grassroots citizen group, a public hearing with medical physicians, a key intergovernmental hearing, and a formal debate among experts. The result is a look at a very recent, important historical moment and a useful examination of environmental activist and fossil fuel advocate rhetoric around an issue that continues to cause debate nationwide.

From my own experience reading it, I wholeheartedly agree that it is a must-read for any scholar in the field and also anyone interested in this issue. Please enjoy getting to learn more about Richard and his work in this interview.

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Brain Rot: How Screens Affect the Minds of Young Adults (4) Mar 16, 2025

Show notes

In this episode Dr. Karyne Messina, a New Books Network host, and Dr. Harry Gill discussed the negative effects of excessive screen time on young adults' mental health and development, emphasizing the importance of face-to-face interactions and shared experiences. They focused on Erik Erickson’s first phase of adulthood which is the Intimacy versus Isolation phase from neuroscience and psychoanalytic perspectives.

Dr. Gill talked about the prefrontal cortex of our brains that continue to wire until age 25. This doesn’t happen in an optimal way when people are passively tuned into screens. He highlighted the importance of connecting with real people versus social media “friends.” He also said that humans are much more prone to isolate as opposed to being in intimate relationships which takes work. He added that meeting on a screen promotes pseudo intimacy that is not an adequate substitute for being with a real person.

Dr. Messina discussed a study that found adults who spend 6 hours a day or more on social media platforms tend to be much more depressed and anxious. She also mentioned that one of her middle-aged patients who gave up all social media activity, realized much to his surprise that he had 25 to 30 extra hours a week to do things he really enjoyed.

They both talked about the benefits of turning off phones and televisions early in the evening so that a person, couple or family can have quality time participating in some type of meaningful activity versus watching or reading what people on screens are saying or doing. The also discussed how blue light emitted by screens interferes with the production of melatonin which prevents people from falling asleep.

Another topic included was ways to mitigate problems associated with too much screen time. Dr. Messina focused on the importance of community which she thinks is important at all ages. If getting together in person isn’t possible, talking with a friend on the phone is better than using this device for passive purposes such as scrolling through social media posts. Dr. Gill reminded people how important it is to meet in person and said some of his patients have actually enjoyed going back to work full-time once they got used to it again.

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Mia Consalvo et al., "Streaming by the Rest of Us: Microstreaming Videogames on Twitch" (MIT Press, 2025) Mar 14, 2025

Show notes

The vast majority of people who stream themselves playing videogames online do so with few or no viewers. In Streaming by the Rest of Us: Microstreaming Videogames on Twitch (MIT Press, 2025) Dr. Mia Consalvo, Dr. Marc Lajeunesse, and Dr. Andrei Zanescu investigate who they are, why they do so, and why this form of leisure activity is important to understand. Unlike the esports athletes and streaming superstars who receive the lion's share of journalistic and academic attention, microstreamers are not in it for the money and barely have an audience. In this, the first book dedicated to the latter group, the authors gather interviews from dozens of microstreamers from 2017 to 2019 to discuss their lives, struggles, hopes, and goals.

For readers interested in livestreaming, and Twitch in particular, the book rethinks the medium's history through accounts of the everyday uses of webcams, with particular attention to notions of liveness and authenticity. These two concepts have become calling cards for the videogame livestreaming platform and underlie streamer motivations, the construction of their practices (whether casual, serious, or anywhere in between), and the complex “metas” that take shape over time. The book also looks at the authors' own practices of livestreaming, focusing on what can be gained through experiencing the lived reality of the practice. Finally, the authors explain how Twitch's platform (studied from 2017–2023) informs how streamers structure their every day and how corporate ideologies bleed into real-world spaces like TwitchCon.

This book is available open-access via the MIT Press website.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.

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Karl Berglund, "Reading Audio Readers: Book Consumption in the Streaming Age" (Bloomsbury, 2024) Mar 13, 2025

Show notes

What is the future of reading? In Reading Audio Readers: Book Consumption in the Digital Age (Bloombury, 2024), Karl Berglund, Assistant Professor in Literature at Department of Literature and Rhetoric at Upsala University, examines the rise of audiobooks as a new mode of reading books. The analysis draws on digital humanities methods and a detailed industry case study to show who are the readers of audiobooks, how those readers engage and consume books, what sort of genres are most popular, and crucially how all of this us impacting on the publishing industry. The research also picks up on important themes of continuity and change represented by audiobooks, from ongoing issues of inequalities through to the new forms of writing practice and AI generated narrators. A richly detailed but easily accessible text, the book is essential reading for scholars across academia, as well as anyone interested in reading!

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Matthew Fuhrmann, "Influence without Arms: The New Logic of Nuclear Deterrence" (Cambridge UP, 2024) Mar 12, 2025

Show notes

How does nuclear technology influence international relations? While many books focus on countries armed with nuclear weapons, this volume puts the spotlight on those who have the technology to build nuclear bombs but choose not to. These weapons-capable countries, such as Brazil, Germany, and Japan, have what is known as nuclear latency, and they shape world politics in important ways.

Matthew Fuhrmann navigates a critical yet poorly understood issue by offering a definitive account of nuclear latency. He identifies global trends, explains why countries obtain nuclear latency and analyzes its consequences for international security. Influence Without Arms presents new statistical and case evidence that nuclear latency enhances deterrence, provides greater influence, and triggers conflict and arms races. The book offers a framework to explain when nuclear latency increases security and, when it incites instability, generates far-reaching implications for deterrence, nuclear proliferation, arms races, preventive war, and disarmament.

Our guest is Matthew Fuhrmann, the Cullen-McFadden Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University.

Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023).

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Leigh Ann Henion, "Night Magic: Adventures Among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark" (Algonquin, 2024) Mar 11, 2025

Show notes

“Almost every storyline we’re familiar with suggests that we should banish [darkness] as quickly as possible—because darkness is often presented as a void of doom rather than a force of nature that nourishes lives, including our own.”

According to Dark Sky International, 99% of people in the US live under the influence of skyglow. With each artificial light we install, we grow more unfamiliar with darkness and its riches. But what if darkness, instead of being a source of danger and discomfort, could be the very place where life flourishes in unexpected ways?

InNight Magic: Adventures Among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark (Algonquin Books, 2024), Leigh Ann Henion invites us to discover the amazing creatures and species that exist within darkness, from fireflies and moths to salamanders and glowworms.

Henion bravely explores the biodiversity of her home region of Appalachia, taking us to a synchronous firefly event in Tennessee, a bat outing in Alabama, and a moth festival in Ohio. In North Carolina, she finds forests alight with bioluminescent mushrooms, neighborhood trees full of screech owls, and valleys teeming with migratory salamanders. Along the way, Henion encounters naturalists, biologists, primitive-skills experts, and others who’ve dedicated their lives to cultivating relationships with darkness.

In an age of increasing artificial light, Night Magic focuses on the profound beauty that still surrounds us after sunset.

Leigh Ann Henion (author) is the New York Times bestselling author of Night Magic: Adventures Among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark and Phenomenal: A Hesitant Adventurer's Search for Wonder in the Natural World. Her work has appeared in Smithsonian, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Southern Living, Garden & Gun, and a variety of other publications. She is a former Alicia Patterson Fellow, and her work has been supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Henion lives in Boone, North Carolina.

Renee Hale (host) holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and works in R&D for the food and beverage industry. She is the author of The Nightstorm Files, a voracious reader, and enjoys sharing new discoveries with listeners and readers alike.

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Eleni Kalantidou on Design, Repairability, and Cultures of Repair Mar 10, 2025

Show notes

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.

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M. Chirimuuta, "The Brain Abstracted: Simplification in the History and Philosophy of Neuroscience" (MIT Press, 2024) Mar 10, 2025

Show notes

This book is available open access here.

The Brain Abstracted: Simplification in the History and Philosophy of Neuroscience (MIT Press, 2024), Mazviita Chirimuuta argues that the standard ways neuroscientists simplify the human brain to build models for their research purposes mislead us about how the brain actually works. The key issue, instead, is to figure out which details of brain function are relevant for understanding its role in causing behavior; after all, the biological brain is a highly energetically efficient basis of cognition in contrast to the massive data centers driving AI that are based on the simplification that brain functionality is just a matter of neuronal action potentials. Chirimuuta, who is a senior lecturer in philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, also argues for a Kantian-inspired view of neuroscientific knowledge called haptic realism, according to which what we can know about the brain is the product of interaction between brains and the scientific methods and aims that guide how we investigate them.

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Lessons on Living with AI from the Home Computer Revolution: Revisiting Sherry Turkle’s “The Second Self” Mar 10, 2025

Show notes

It’s the UConn Popcast, and we've been experiencing a revolution in the past few years, as artificial intelligence becomes an increasingly common part of everyday life. Powerful AI tools are now integrated into our work, our schools, our creative industries, and our experiences of dating and companionship. This is a disorientating experience, one that changes not only our views of technology, but of ourselves. Can we look to a past technological revolution for help?

We revisit Sherry Turkle's classic text The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit (MIT Press, 1985) on how the sudden spread of the personal computer through society in the 1980s similarly challenged the human relationship to technology. What can Turkle's text, which combined the fields of ethnography, psychoanalysis, and technology and society, tell us about today's AI revolution?

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