Peoples & Things

Dec 09 2024 87 ep. 72 mins 42

Peoples & Things Podcast artwork

Peoples & Things is a podcast in which host Lee Vinsel interviews scholars, practitioners, and activists about human life with technology.

Society & Culture

Copy RSS

Subscribe on Podcast Addict

Benjamin J. Shestakofsky on How Venture Capital Shapes Work, Innovation, and Inequality

Dec 09 2024 72 mins

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks to Benjamin Shestakofsky about his book, Behind the Startup: How Venture Capital Shapes Work, Innovation, and Inequality (U California Press, 2024). Shestakofsky is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is affiliated with AI at Wharton and the Center on Digital Culture and Society. His research centers

Anthony Kwame Harrison on Cassette Tapes and Hip Hop Culture

Nov 18 2024 119 mins

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Kwame Harrison, Alumni Distinguished Professor and Professor of Sociology at Virginia Tech. Harrison records and performs under the moniker “Mad Squirrel” and has co-founded two groups—the San-Francisco-based Forest Fires Collective and Washington DC’s The Acorns—as well as releasing various solo projects. Harrison is the auth

Salem Elzway and Jason Resnikoff on Automation

Nov 04 2024 81 mins

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Salem Elzway, postdoctoral fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at University of Southern California, and Jason Resnikoff, assistant professor of contemporary history at the University of Groningen, about the history of automation. The discussion takes as its launching point an essay Elzway and Resnikoff published in the j

Kids Across the Spectrums: Growing Up Autistic in the Digital Age

Oct 21 2024 76 mins

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Meryl Alper, Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Northeastern University, about her recent book, Kids Across the Spectrums: Growing Up Autistic in the Digital Age (MIT Press, 2023). In addition to being a professor, Alper is also an educational researcher who has worked over the past 20 years to make inclusive and accessible

Pamela O. Long on the Long, Long, Long History of Technology

Oct 07 2024 71 mins

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with MacArthur “Genius Prize” winning historian Pamela Long about her long career writing about the history of ancient and Medieval technologies. The pair use Long’s forthcoming book, Technology in Mediterranean and European Lands, 600-1600 (Johns Hopkins UP, 2025), as a launching point but also cover her previous work, especially incl

Emily M. Bender on AI Hype

Sep 23 2024 71 mins

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks to Emily Bender, Professor of Linguistics, Director of the Masters of Science in Computational Linguistics program, and Director of the Computational Linguistics Laboratory at University of Washington, about her work on artificial intelligence criticism. Bender is also an adjunct professor in the School of Computer Science and Engineering an

Raquel Velho on Disability, Infrastructure, and London's Public Transport System

Sep 09 2024 88 mins

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks to Raquel Velho, Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, about her recent book, Hacking the Underground: Disability, Infrastructure, and London's Public Transport System (U Washington Press, 2023). Hacking the Underground provides a fascinating ethnographic investigation of how disabled peop

Cyrus Mody on the Importance of Square (as in NOT COOL) Scientists and Engineers

Aug 26 2024 71 mins

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks to Cyrus Mody, Professor in the History of Science, Technology, and Innovation and Director of the STS Program at Maastricht University, about his book, The Squares: US Physical and Engineering Scientists in the Long 1970s (MIT Press, 2022). Many narratives about contemporary technologies, especially digital computing and the Internet, focus

Benjamin C. Waterhouse on "One Day I'll Work for Myself: The Dream and Delusion That Conquered America"

Aug 12 2024 85 mins

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks to Benjamin Waterhouse, full-as-full-can- be Professor of History at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, about his book, One Day I’ll Work for Myself: The Dream and Delusion that Conquered America (Norton, 2024). The book examines how the ideal of self-employment became so prominent in the United States after the 1970s, and how th

Kate McDonald on Asian Mobility History as Labor History

Jul 29 2024 73 mins

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks to Kate McDonald, Associate Professor of History at University of California, Santa Barbara, about her fascinating research on the history of mobility in Asia and how it looks different when we approach it as a history of work and labor. The pair traverse McDonald’s career from her current project, The Rickshaw and the Railroad: Human-Powe