New Books Network
Systems and Cybernetics
Systems and Cybernetics November 25, 2020

Systems Practice

How to Act In Situations of Uncertainty and Complexity in a Climate-Change World

Ray Ison

Hosted by Tom Scholte
While various systems theories have received rigorous treatments across the literature of the field, reliable and robust advice for systems practice can be somewhat harder to come by. Ray Ison …

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Science, Technology, and Society November 4, 2020

Systems Thinking for a Turbulent World

A Search for New Perspectives (Part 2)

Anthony Hodgson

Hosted by Kevin Lindsay
This is the second episode of a two-part conversation with Hodgson, and in it we pick up our conversation on anticipatory systems and the role they play in ‘decision integrity’ …
Science, Technology, and Society October 7, 2020

Systems Thinking for a Turbulent World

A Search for New Perspectives

Anthony Hodgson

Hosted by Kevin LIndsay and Tom Scholte
In the view of Anthony Hodgson, fragmentation of local and global societies is escalating, and this is aggravating vicious cycles. To heal the rifts, Hodgson believes we need to reintroduce …
Architecture August 20, 2020

Design Cybernetics

Navigating the New

T. Fischer and C.M. Herr

Hosted by Tom Scholte
Those who have followed this podcast in the past, and those who follow developments in cybernetics in the present, will be no strangers to the name Ranulph Glanville. This brilliant …
Economics January 21, 2020

Loonshots

How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries

Safi Bahcall

Hosted by Curiosity Daily
Safi Bahcall's Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries (St. Martin's Press, 2019) reveals a surprising new way of thinking about the …
Chinese Studies January 2, 2020

Information Fantasies

Precarious Mediation in Postsocialist China

Xiao Liu

Hosted by Tom Scholte
International and transnational historiography has given us vivid glimpses of the development and impact of cybernetics on a national scale in such countries as the Soviet Union, Chile and, of …
Anthropology July 4, 2019

Bowen Theory’s Secrets

Revealing the Hidden Life of Families

Michael E. Kerr

Hosted by Eugenio Duarte
A pivotal development in the history of psychology was the invention of family systems theory by psychiatrist Murray Bowen. He was among the first to observe families in a naturalistic …
Philosophy June 10, 2019

Representation in Cognitive Science

Nicholas Shea

Hosted by Carrie Figdor
In order to explain thought in natural physical systems, mainstream cognitive science posits representations, or internal states that carry information about the world and that are used by the system …
Architecture June 4, 2019

Codify

Parametric and Computational Design in Landscape Architecture

Bradley Cantrell and Adam Mekies

Hosted by Tricia Keffer
Landscape architecture has a long history of innovation in the areas of computation and media, particularly in how the discipline represents, analyses, and constructs complex systems. Bradley Cantrell and Adam …
Science, Technology, and Society May 10, 2019

Cybernetics and Systems

Social and Business Decisions

Raul Espejo

Hosted by Tom Scholte
Regular listeners of this podcast will, no doubt, be familiar with the name of Raul Espejo, former Director of Operations of Stafford Beer’s famed Cybersyn Project under the Chilean government …
Systems and Cybernetics March 20, 2019

Philosophy, Processes, Practice

Philosophy, Processes, Practice

Mary C. Edson, Pamela Buckle Henning, and Sankar Shankaran

Hosted by Tom Scholte
Like a number of the books discussed on this podcast, A Guide to Systems Research: Philosophy, Processes, Practice (Springer, 2017), was intended to fill gaps in a field that, through …
Anthropology February 4, 2019

Social Systems and Design

Gary Metcalf

Hosted by Tom Scholte
In the opening chapter of his edited volume, Social Systems and Design, out from Springer in 2014, Gary Metcalf asks if it is possible to establish ethical “first principles” for …
Science January 2, 2019

Principles of Systems Science

George E. Mobus and Michael C. Kalton

Hosted by Tom Scholte
Of the many barriers to a more robust presence for systems approaches in the academy, the relative scarcity of sufficient introductory textbooks in the field stands out as a particular …
Psychology November 19, 2018

Doing Research on Purpose

A Control Theory Approach to Experimental Psychology

Richard S. Marken

Hosted by Tom Scholte
Listeners familiar with our recent podcasts exploring the remarkable legacy of William T. Powers revolutionary Perceptual Control Theory of human behaviour, including its contribution to cognitive behavioural therapy through the …
Psychology October 26, 2018

A Transdiagnostic Approach to CBT using Method of Levels Therapy

Distinctive Features

Warren Mansell, Timothy A. Carey, Sara J. Tai

Hosted by Tom Scholte
To many, the title, A Transdiagnostic Approach to CBT using Method of Levels Therapy: Distinctive Features (Routledge, 2012) , may seem incongruous with a podcast channel called "New Books in …
Anthropology October 4, 2018

Upside-Down Gods

Gregory Bateson's World of Difference

Peter Harries-Jones

Hosted by Tom Scholte
The work of polymath Gregory Bateson has long been the road to cybernetics travelled by those approaching this trans-disciplinary field from the direction of the social sciences and even the …
Economics October 4, 2018

The Fourth Age

Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity

Byron Reese

Hosted by Carrie Lynn Evans
In his new book, The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity (Simon & Schuster, 2018), futurist, technologist, and CEO of Gigaom, Byron Reese makes the …
Science September 5, 2018

The Beginning of Heaven and Earth Has No Name

Seven Days With Second-Order Cybernetics

Albert Müller, ed.

Hosted by Tom Scholte
Between his retirement from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne in 1975 and his death in 2002, many cyberneticians made the pilgrimage to Pescadero, California to unravel the oft-elusive subtleties …
Economics August 1, 2018

Applied Systems Theory

Rob Dekkers

Hosted by Tom Scholte
As Reader in Industrial Management in the Adam Smith Business School at the University of Glasgow, Rob Dekkers is well positioned to survey the currents of the vibrant systems tradition …
Public Policy July 26, 2018

Meltdown

Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It

Chris Clearfield and András Tilcsik

Hosted by Sarah Patterson
How can we learn from large system failures? In their new book Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It (Penguin Press, 2018), Chris Clearfield and …