The MIT Press Podcast

Carla Cevasco, Assistant Professor of American Studies at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, discusses her recent article, "This is My Body: Communion and Cannibalism in Colonial New England and New France." Her article was published in the December 2016 issue of The New England Quarterly. Abstract: Analyzing the material culture of English, French, and Native communion ceremonies, and d...

This episode features an interview with MIT Press author Varun Sivaram about his new book Taming the Sun. Varun Sivaram is the Philip D. Reed Fellow for Science and Technology at the Council on Foreign Relations. He teaches “Clean Energy Innovation” at Georgetown University, is a Fellow at Columbia University's Center for Global Energy Policy, and serves on Stanford University's energy and environ...

“…Using VR scent, touch, and sight to alter the subjective experience of taste is going to be very large project; not just an academic project but also for those in the food industry.” Does feeling and smelling donuts in a Virtual Reality setting contribute to eating less and feeling fuller? In this episode, Jeremy Bailenson, Founding Director of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford Unive...

NFT, BTC, DAO, ETH, WAGMI, HODL. It would have been hard to avoid these acronyms only a year ago. The hype around cryptocurrencies and blockchain art was almost as annoying as the glee with which crypto sceptics welcomed the sudden onset of the crypto winter. But for all the popularity of Bored Apes and Ponzi scheme stories, there seems to have been little serious engagement with the philosophical...

Anne Graziano and Eliyahu Keller, editors of Thresholds 46: SCATTER!, talk about the mission of the journal; the making of the SCATTER! issue; the role of student journals; and how to make architectural knowledge and education more accessible. Established in 1992, Thresholds is the annual peer-reviewed journal produced by the MIT Department of Architecture. Each independently themed issue features...

How the way we perceive our bodies plays a critical role in the way we perceive ourselves: stories of phantom limbs, rubber hands, anorexia, and other phenomena. The body is central to our sense of identity. It can be a canvas for self-expression, decorated with clothing, jewelry, cosmetics, tattoos, and piercings. But the body is more than that. Bodily awareness, says scientist-writer Moheb Costa...

In Break On Through, Lucas Richert explores Anti-psychiatry, psychedelics, and radical challenges to psychiatry and the conventional treatment of mental health in the 1970s. In this interview Lucas discusses the issues that run through the sixties and seventies and how they're forming debates about mental health today. "Antipsychiatry," Esalen, psychedelics, and DSM III: Radical challenges to psyc...

The intersection between cutting-edge neuroscience and the emerging field of network science has been growing tremendously over the past decade. Olaf Sporns, editor of Network Neuroscience, and Distinguished Professor, Provost Professor of Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University Bloomington, discusses the applications of network science technology to neuroscience. Dr....

Listen as Peter Krause and Sean Lynn-Jones discuss the key differences between united and hegemonic power and the internal structure of violent and nonviolent national movements, as outlined in Krause’s article “The Structure of Success: How the Internal Distribution of Power Drives Armed Group Behavior and National Movement Effectiveness” from International Security 38:3 (Winter 2013/14). This co...

Listen as Andrew Menard and Laura Dassow Walls discuss the notions of walking, wildness, nationalism, and the role of beauty in Thoreau's "Walking." This conversation was recorded on February 27, 2014. Read Andrew Menard's article, "Nationalism and the Nature of Thoreau's 'Walking.'" 

Why laws focused on data cannot effectively protect people—and how an approach centered on human rights offers the best hope for preserving human dignity and autonomy in a cyberphysical world. Ever-pervasive technology poses a clear and present danger to human dignity and autonomy, as many have pointed out. And yet, for the past fifty years, we have been so busy protecting data that we have failed...

Our contributors discuss their work in the arts and sciences, which is showcased in the new article collection, Water Is in the Air: Physics, Politics, and Poetics of Water in the Arts. Water Is in the Air explores the ways that artists, from all over the world, working at the cutting edge of science and engineering, create work that addresses critical issues of water in culture and society. This...

Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of a lovely feminine Paul Revere... Marla R. Miller and Paula D. Hunt discuss Sybil Ludington, material culture, and American mythmaking. Although there is no primary evidence supporting Sybil’s historic ride, she has become an increasingly popular figure tied to the American Revolution. This conversation was recorded on March 30, 2015. Correction: At (28:41...

As Lucas Kello reveals, it is far easier to attack than to defend when it comes to cyber war. Listen as Kello and Sean Lynn-Jones discuss the dangers of cyber war, review recent cases of cyber attack, and offer security advice for policymakers. This conversation is based on Kello’s article “The Meaning of the Cyber Revolution: Perils to Theory and Statecraft,” which appears in the Fall 2013 issue...

Our contributors discuss the connections between science, specifically chemistry, and art, and talk about how materials traditionally identified with science can be used to create art. This conversation was recorded on January 24, 2013. Tami Spector, Professor of Chemistry at the University of San Francisco. Philip Ball, freelance science writer, lecturer, and author of several popular science boo...

As Mary Sarotte reveals in her Fall 2012 article in International Security, the actions of the Chinese government during the Tiananmen Square protests nearly split the Communist Party of China. Listen as Sarotte and International Security Editor Sean Lynn-Jones discuss internal party reactions to the event, how it affected relations between the US and China, and lessons the CCP may have learned fr...

Maximilian Schich, Isabel Meirelles, and Roger Malina discuss the contents and creation of the new article collection, Arts, Humanities, and Complex Networks, which explores the application of the science of complex networks to art history, archeology, visual arts, the art market, and other areas of cultural importance. This conversation was recorded on April 26, 2012. Maximilian Schich, DFG fello...

Bill Fowler, member of the editorial board of The New England Quarterly, Mary Babson Fuhrer, and Robert A. Gross discuss Fuhrer's recent NEQ article, “The Revolutionary Worlds of Lexington and Concord Compared” and Gross's 1976 book, The Minutemen and Their World. Our panelists discuss the two colonial towns, their similarities and differences, and key factors that led to the famous battles betwee...

Edward Mead Earle was a historian, scholar, professor, and international relations expert; he was also a founding father of the field we know as Security Studies. Listen as David Ekbladh and International Security Editor Sean Lynn-Jones discuss Earle's contributions to the field, his views on what Security Studies should be, his seminar at the Institute for Advanced Study, and what he might think...

Contributing artists to PAJ 100 recorded podcasts based on their pieces for the issue, responding to PAJ editor Bonnie Marranca's four statements on major themes Belief, Being Contemporary, Performance and Science, and Writing and Performance. Read about the contributors and themes here.

Much has been made of the rise of China's economy, and some fear that China will surpass the United States as the world's largest economy in the coming years. Michael Beckley goes against the grain in his article "China's Century? Why America's Edge Will Endure" (International Security, Winter 2011/12), arguing that the size of a nation's economy doesn't necessarily dictate its global power, and t...

Bill Fowler, member of the editorial board of The New England Quarterly, Professor Dick Brown, and Governor Michael Dukakis discuss Brown's recent NEQ article, “'Tried, Convicted, and Condemned, in Almost Every Bar-room and Barber's Shop': Anti-Irish Prejudice in the Trial of Dominic Daley and James Halligan, Northampton, Massachusetts, 1806". Our panel touches on the evolution of our judicial sys...

In this podcast, Claire MacDonald and Sarah Parry discuss the history of recording, the sharing of sound art between artists, how recording has shaped communities, the impact of technology on artists and their publics, and the artist's voice and the different genres it inhabits. About the Contributors: Claire MacDonald is a curator, writer, and editor whose work focuses on the intersections of per...

Nicolas Collins, editor of Leonardo Music Journal and Chair of Sound at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, answered our questions about the 20th anniversary issue of LMJ. The issue's theme was improvisation. In the podcast, Nic explains how he chose the theme and shares insights about putting the issue together, as well as about how improvisation and composition have evolved during his te...

Playing Oppression: The Legacy of Conquest and Empire in Colonialist Board Games (MIT Press, 2023) by Dr. Mary Flanagan & Dr. Mikael Jakobsson is a striking analysis of popular board games' roots in imperialist reasoning—and why the future of play depends on reckoning with it. Board games conjure up images of innocuously enriching entertainment: family game nights, childhood pastimes, cooperative...