Peoples & Things

Mar 10 2025 94 ep. 73 mins 43

Peoples & Things Podcast artwork

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

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Eleni Kalantidou on Design, Repairability, and Cultures of Repair

Mar 10 2025 60 mins

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 pract

Aure Schrock on Politics Recoded: The Infrastructural Organizing of Code for America

Feb 24 2025 96 mins

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Aure Schrock, an interdisciplinary technology scholar and writing coach and editor at Indelible Voice, about their book, Politics Recoded: The Infrastructural Organizing of Code for America (MIT Press, 2024) Politics Recoded examines the history and culture of Code for America, an organization that, as one of its leaders put it, aimed �

Gabriella Coleman on Hackers Cultures (Plural!)

Feb 10 2025 86 mins

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, and guest host, Paula Bialski, Associate Professor for Digital Sociology at the University of St. Gallen in St. Gallen, Switzerland, interview Gabriella Coleman, Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University, about her long career studying hacker cultures. Topics include how hacking has changed over time, the different colored “hats” used to

Marshall Poe on the New Books Network, Technology, and the Future of Academic Communication

Jan 27 2025 79 mins

Peoples and Things host, Lee Vinsel, is joined by guest host and Peoples & Things producer, Joe Forte, Media Projects Manager with Virginia Tech Publishing, in interviewing Marshall Poe, the founder and editor of the New Books Network, the largest academic podcasting platform in the world. The trio discuss how the New Books Network came to be; how digital technologies open up new t

Special Episode: Mike Sacasas on the Question of the Human, and the Question of Technology, Live at the Bradley Study Center

Jan 20 2025 83 mins

This special episode features a discussion between Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, and Michael Sacasas, author of The Convivial Society substack newsletter and Executive Director of the Christian Studies Center of Gainesville, Florida. In the first part, Sacasas gives a presentation - riffing on the title of Martin Heidegger’s famous essay, “The Question Concerning Technolog

Joshua Brinkman on American Farming Culture and the History of Technology

Jan 06 2025 90 mins

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Joshua Brinkman, Assistant Teaching Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at North Carolina State University, about his book, American Farming Culture and the History of Technology (Routledge, 2024). The book provides a fascinating exploration about how American farmers–contrary to their image as backwards and even anti-techno

Matt Beane, "The Skill Code: How to Save Human Ability in an Age of Intelligent Machines" (HarperCollins, 2024)

Dec 23 2024 90 mins

As part of our informal series on artificial intelligence, Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Matt Beane, Assistant Professor of Technology Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara, about his book The Skill Code: How to Save Human Ability in the Age of Intelligent Machines (HarperCollins, 2024). Beane outlines the fascinating forms of research he did -

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