New Books Network
Big Ideas
Economics May 7, 2021

Post Growth

Life after Capitalism

Tim Jackson

Hosted by Andrea Bernardi
I spoke with Prof. Tim Jackson about his latest book: Post Growth, Life after Capitalism, published by Polity Books in 2021. The book starts with a reflection on the event …

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Animal Studies May 3, 2021

Metazoa

Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind

Peter Godfrey-Smith

Hosted by Mark Molloy
Dip below the ocean’s surface and you are soon confronted by forms of life that could not seem more foreign to our own: sea sponges, soft corals, and serpulid worms …
Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel April 26, 2021

Believers

Faith in Human Nature

Melvin Konner

Hosted by Renee Garfinkel
Believers: Faith in Human Nature (Norton, 2019) is a scientist's answer to attacks on faith by some well-meaning scientists and philosophers. It is a firm rebuke of the "Four Horsemen"--Richard …
Language April 21, 2021

Why Chimpanzees Can't Learn Language and Only Humans Can

Herbert S. Terrace

Hosted by Malcolm Keating
Through discussion of his famous 1970s experiment alongside new research, in Why Chimpanzees Can’t Learn Language and Only Humans Can (Columbia University Press, 2019), Herbert Terrace argues that, despite the …
Economics April 19, 2021

The Human Network

How Your Social Position Determines Your Power, Beliefs, and Behaviors

Matthew O. Jackson

Hosted by Peter Lorentzen
Social networks existed and shaped our lives long before Silicon Valley startups made them virtual. For over two decades economist Matthew O. Jackson, a professor at Stanford University, has studied how …
Critical Theory April 12, 2021

Abolishing Freedom

A Plea for a Contemporary Use of Fatalism

Frank Ruda

Hosted by Dominik Finkelde
Frank Ruda's book Abolishing Freedom. A Plea for a Contemporary Use of Fatalism (University of Nebraska Press 2016) presents a compelling reading of authors diverse as Martin Luther, Descartes, Kant …
Science April 6, 2021

Extraterrestrial

The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth

Avi Loeb

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
In late 2017, scientists at a Hawaiian observatory glimpsed an object soaring through our inner solar system, moving so quickly that it could only have come from another star. Avi …
Science, Technology, and Society April 2, 2021

The Coevolution

The Entwined Futures of Humans and Machines

Edward Ashford Lee

Hosted by John Traphagan
Are humans defining technology, or is technology defining humans? In The Coevolution: The Entwined Futures of Humans and Machines (MIT Press, 2020), Edward Ashford Lee considers the case that we are …
Asian Review of Books April 1, 2021

x + y

A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender

Eugenia Cheng

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
From its more mainstream, business-focused and business-friendly “Lean In” variants, to more radical, critical and intersectional understandings of feminism, the past decade has seen a flourishing of discussion from those …
Philosophy April 1, 2021

Being Evil

A Philosophical Perspective

Luke Russell

Hosted by Robert Talisse
Evil is among our everyday moral concepts. It is common to hear politicians and others condemn certain acts, purposes, people, or even populations as evil. But what does it mean …
Communications March 26, 2021

Action at a Distance

John Durham Peters, Florian Sprenger, and Christina Vagt

Hosted by Marci Mazzarotto
Contemporary media leads us more than ever to an ‘acting at a distance,’ an acting entangled with the materiality of communication and the mediality of transmission. Action at a Distance …
Medicine March 17, 2021

Humanist Reason

A History. An Argument. A Plan

Eric Hayot

Hosted by Claire Clark
Scientists have scientific reason and use the scientific method. Humanists have... Emotion? Close reading? Not so, argues Eric Hayot in Humanist Reason: A History. An Argument. A Plan (Columbia UP …
Anthropology March 12, 2021

First Steps

How Upright Walking Made Us Human

Jeremy DeSilva

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Blending history, science, and culture, a stunning and highly engaging evolutionary story exploring how walking on two legs allowed humans to become the planet’s dominant species. Humans are the only …
Dan Hill's EQ Spotlight March 4, 2021

The Feeling Economy

How Artificial Intelligence Is Creating the Era of Empathy

Roland T. Rust and Ming-Hui Huang

Hosted by Dan Hill
Today I talked to Ming-Hui Huang about her book (coauthored with Roland T. Rust), The Feeling Economy: How Artificial Intelligence Is Creating the Era of Empathy (Palgrave MacMillan, 2021) This episode covers the …
National Security February 26, 2021

Reset

Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society

Ronald J. Deibert

Hosted by John Sakellariadis
Ronald Deibert is a professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto and the Director of The Citizen Lab, a public interest research organization that uncovers privacy and human …
Science January 26, 2021

The Pattern Seekers

A New Theory of Human Invention

Simon Baron-Cohen

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Why are humans alone capable of invention? This question is relevant to every human invention, from music to mathematics, sculpture and science, dating back to the beginnings of civilization. In …
Environmental Studies January 25, 2021

Scorched Earth

Environmental Warfare as a Crime Against Humanity and Nature

Emmanuel Kreike

Hosted by Ahmed Almaazmi
In Scorched Earth: Environmental Warfare as a Crime Against Humanity and Nature (Princeton UP, 2021), Emmanuel Kreike offers a global history of environmental warfare and makes the case for why it should …
Sociology January 21, 2021

Digital Nomads

In Search of Freedom, Community, and Meaningful Work in the New Economy

Rachael A. Woldoff and Robert C. Litchfield

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
In the space of a few weeks this spring, organizations around the world learned that many traditional, in-person jobs could, in fact, be performed remotely. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, however …
Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel January 8, 2021

The Tyranny of Merit

What's Become of the Common Good?

Michael J. Sandel

Hosted by Renee Garfinkel
These are dangerous times for democracy. We live in an age of winners and losers, where the odds are stacked in favor of the already fortunate. Stalled social mobility and …
Language January 6, 2021

Extraterrestrial Languages

Daniel Oberhaus

Hosted by Malcolm Keating
In Extraterrestrial Languages (MIT Press 2020), Daniel Oberhaus tells the history of human efforts to talk to aliens, but in doing so, the book reflects on the relationship between communication …