TechnoViews

Susan GREENHALGH, interviewed by Gonçalo SANTOS and Jun ZHANG on 28/February/2025 ABOUT THIS EPISODE In this episode, anthropologist and science studies specialist Susan Greenhalgh talks about her most recent book, Soda Science. Making the World Safe for Coca-Cola, taking TechnoViews listeners deep inside the secret world of corporate science, where powerful companies and allied academic scientist...

John B. LOURDUSAMY and Tiago SARAIVA , interviewed by Gonçalo SANTOS and Jun ZHANG on 13/August/2024 ABOUT THIS EPISODE Dr. Lourdusamy and Dr. Saraiva present their recently published book, Moving Crops and the Scales of History , speaking on behalf of a larger collective of authors that includes also Francesca Bray and Barbara Hahn. The episode begins with a discussion of key concepts such as the...

Lin ZHANG, interviewed by Joseph BOSCO on 13 December 2023 ABOUT THIS EPISODE In this episode, Dr. Zhang discusses the definition of the “entrepreneur” and why it is important. She also discusses why the idea that entrepreneurship would decrease inequality has become so popular in among PRC leaders. The author also explains the significance of her three cases, and elaborates on the life course of...

Stevan HARRELL, interviewed by Loretta Ieng-tak LOU on 9/December/2023 ABOUT THIS EPISODE This episode features a conversation with Stevan Harrell about his recent masterful overview of China's environmental processes from the twentieth century to the present. The author discusses how the ‘ecological history’ approach differs from more conventional approaches to environmental history. The conversa...

Silvia LINDTNER, interviewed by Joseph BOSCO on 25 October 2022 ABOUT THIS EPISODE In this episode, Dr. Lindtner explains what is the “maker” movement, and why she focused on this phenomenon. She discusses how she conducted ethnographic research in companies that can often be wary of outsiders, especially foreigners. She also discusses how making was appropriated by the Chinese Communist Party as...

Gonçalo SANTOS, interviewed by Jun ZHANG on May 26, 2022 ABOUT THIS EPISODE This podcast episode discusses village life in China today after more than four decades of radical programs of urbanization and modernization. As China became a predominantly urban and industrial society with increasing levels of affluence, the government expanded its capacity to implement large-scale programs of developme...

Andrew KIPNIS, interviewed by Jun ZHANG and Gonçalo SANTOS on October 28, 2021 ABOUT THIS EPISODE This podcast episode features a conversation with Andrew Kipnis on his recent work on China's changing funerary practices in the context of powerful forces of urbanization. It examines how spatial reorganization during Chinese urbanization problematized death, and how newly emerged forms of familial o...

Lena KAUFMANN, interviewed by Joseph BOSCO on 9 Sept 2021 ABOUT THIS EPISODE In this podcast episode, Dr. Kaufmann discusses what she means by the term “sociotechnical,” and “paddy field predicament,” the fact that in the area she researched, paddy fields need to be continuously planted or they become damaged and less productive. We also discuss her argument that technology is not simply a matter...

Lyle FEARNLEY, interviewed by Jun ZHANG on 11 August 2021. ABOUT THIS EPISODE In this podcast episode, we discuss how virus surveillance systems identified China as an "epicenter" or source of pandemics, and discusses how these scientific approaches drive a broader "geography of blame." Drawing on Fearnley's book on avian and pandemic influenza science in China, we explore why wet markets, wild an...

Nicolas STERNSDORFF-CISTERNA, interviewed by Jun ZHANG on 28 July 2021. ABOUT THIS EPISODE This podcast episode discusses the aftermath of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and food safety. The accident forced people to confront new risks in their lives and to question whether government policies would keep them safe. This led to the emergence of social movements in which c...

Susan GREENHALGH, interviewed by Joseph BOSCO on 19 February 2021. FEATURED AUTHOR Susan Greenhalgh is the John King and Wilma Cannon Fairbank Research Professor of Chinese Society in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University, and the co-editor of the recently published volume, Can Science and Technology Save China? (Cornell University Press, 2020). Her two most recent books are Fat-Tal...

Li ZHANG, interviewed by Joseph BOSCO on February 5, 2021. FEATURED AUTHOR Li ZHANG is a professor in the Dept. of Anthropology at the University of California—Davis, and the author of the new book Anxious China: Inner Revolution and Politics of Psychotherapy (2020, University of California Press). Her two previous single-author books are Strangers in the City: Reconfigurations of Space, Power, an...

Jun Zhang (City University of Hong Kong), Interviewed by Cornell University Press in March 2020. FEATURED AUTHOR Jun Zhang is Assistant Professor of Asian and International Studies at City University of Hong Kong. This episode is about her new book Driving toward Modernity: Cars and the Lives of the Middle Class in Contemporary China . In the interview, Jun talks about what it is like to be the fi...

Edwin A. Schmitt (Olso University), Interviewed by Joseph Bosco in April 2019. FEATURED AUTHOR Edwin A. Schmitt is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Cultural Studies and Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo in Norway. He has a PhD in Anthropology from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he wrote a thesis on environmental consciousness, which included examining the issue of...

Fazil Moradi (LOST), Interviewed by Gonçalo Santos in December 2018 at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. FEATURED AUTHOR Fazil Moradi is a postdoctoral researcher, member of the Law, Organization, Science and Technology (LOST) Research Network and an Associate at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. He received his PhD in Social Anthropology from the Unive...

Glenn Davis Stone (Washington University), Interviewed by Joseph Bosco in December 2018, St. Louis, Missouri. FEATURED AUTHOR Glenn Davis Stone is a Professor of Anthropology and Environmental Studies at Washington University in St Louis. Professor Stone’s research focuses on environmental anthropology, political ecology, food studies and science & technology studies. He has conducted fieldwork am...

Stevan Harrell (University of Washington), Interviewed by Gonçalo Santos in June 2018, Whatcom County, WA. FEATURED AUTHOR Stevan Harrell is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Washington. Steve is one of the most well known anthropologists of China. He has been doing empirical research in China and Taiwan for more than four decades. He has published a large number of books and...

Dagmar Schäfer (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science), Interviewed by Gonçalo D. Santos on March 22, 2018, Hong Kong. FEATURED AUTHOR Dagmar Schäfer is the Director of Department III, Artifacts, Action, Knowledge at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. She is Honorary Professor in History of Technology at Technische Universität, Berlin; Adjunct Professor at the...

Michael HERZFELD, interviewed by Gonçalo SANTOS on March 6, 2018, Hong Kong. FEATURED AUTHOR Michael Herzfeld is Ernest E. Monrad Research Professor of the Social Sciences in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. He is also the former and founding Director (2014-18) of the Thai Studies Program, Asia Center, Harvard University; Senior Advisor on Critical Heritage Studies to the Inte...