Darts & Letters

episodes

Darts and Letters is about ‘arts and letters,’ but for the kind of people who might hack a dart. We cover public intellectualism and the politics of academia from a left populist perspective. Put simply: we love ideas, but hate snob culture. Each week, we interview thinkers about key debates that are relevant to the left. We discuss politics, arts, culture, and ideas. But the show is for everyone. That means sometimes you'll hear from the usual suspects, like that authoritative old professor; but just as often, you'll hear from the young iconoclastic scholar, the crass podcaster, the journalist, the activist--even so-called 'ordinary working people.' We're here to discover exciting intellectual life, wherever that might be.

June 4, 2026

Turning IBM's Culture Massively Around

Phil Gilbert

Hosted by Julie Anixter and Dan Hill

Phil Gilbert is best known for leading IBM’s transformation as their General Manager of Design, a project that updated the work of 400,000 IBM employe…

June 2, 2026

Unlimited

Rahul Mukherjee

Hosted by Priyam Sinha

Around 2016, buoyed by so-called data kranti ("data revolution"), an aspirational neo-middle class of users in India accessed internet for the fir…

May 30, 2026

The Master Algorithm

Pedro Domingos

Hosted by Gregory McNiff

In the world's top research labs and universities, the race is on to invent the ultimate learning algorithm: one capable of discovering any knowledge …

May 26, 2026

Learning Languages on Social Media

Hosted by Language on the Move

In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Brynn Quick speaks with Dr. Yeong Ju Lee about her new book Social Media and Language Learning: …

May 16, 2026

Taming Corporate Power in the 21st Century

Gerald F. Davis

Hosted by Alfred Marcus

Information and communication technologies have fundamentally altered the markets for capital, labor, supplies, and distribution in ways that underm…

May 15, 2026

AI and Digital Leadership

Angela I. Fritz

Hosted by Michael LaMagna

AI and Digital Leadership: Transforming Libraries, Archives, and Museums for the Future (Bloomsbury, 2026) explores how galleries, libraries, archives…

May 15, 2026

Reparative Media

Aymar Jean Escoffery

Hosted by Pete Kunze

Can producing stories and developing platforms to support people who have been harmed by multiple, intersecting systems heal those systems? In Reparat…

May 11, 2026

Counter-Revolutionary Puzzles with Guillermo Badia

Hosted by Pat McConville

In this episode Pat speaks with Dr Guillermo Badia. Dr Guillermo Badia is a philosopher working in logic. His research interests are logic in compute…

May 11, 2026

The Rise of the Internet

Angus Burgin

Hosted by Lee Vinsel and Ben Waterhouse

We were joined by Angus Burgin, Associate Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, and talked about how the arrival of the Internet remade li…

May 9, 2026

Recovering the Internet

Olivier Sylvain

Hosted by Jake Chanenson

Recovering the Internet: How Big Tech Took Control-And How We Can Take It Back (Columbia Global Reports, 2026)is an indictment of how Big Tech cloaks …

May 6, 2026

Feminism. Art. Capitalism.

Angela Dimitrakaki

Hosted by Dave O'Brien

Can art change the contemporary world? In Feminism, Art, Capitalism Angela Dimitrakaki, a Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory at the univ…

May 3, 2026

Media Rurality

Patrick Brodie and Darin Barney

Hosted by Sadie Couture

Media Rurality (Duke UP, 2026), edited by Darin Barney and Patrick Brodie, investigates the centrality of rural places and people within the media sys…

April 27, 2026

A Shakeup Is Coming for the Nation-State

Stephen Sims

Hosted by Gregory McNiff

Stephen Sims’ New Atlantis essay examines how emerging technologies are reshaping the structure and authority of the modern nation-state. He argues th…

April 27, 2026

Empire of AI

Karen Hao

Hosted by Joe Williams

In this episode, host Joe Williams talks to tech journalist Karen Hao, whose recent book Empire of AI sheds light on the inner workings of AI giants t…

April 23, 2026

Disneyland and the Rise of Automation

Roland Betancourt

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

When Disneyland opened to the public in 1955, it demystified the hidden world of factory automation through its extraordinary new attractions. In Disn…

April 22, 2026

The Information State: How is the State Surveilling and Manipulating us These Days?

Jacob Siegel

Hosted by International Horizons

In this episode of International Horizons, RBI Acting Director Eli Karetny interviews Jacob Siegel, writer, Army veteran, and author of The Informatio…

April 22, 2026

Powered by Smart

Sarah Murray

Hosted by Pete Kunze

Powered by Smart traces the techno-cultural evolutions that made artificial intelligence feel more familiar than futuristic. From wearables and stream…

April 20, 2026

On the Future of Species

Adrian Woolfson

Hosted by Gregory McNiff

Imagine a future where we grow houses rather than build them. Where smartphones are alive, clothing has opinions and all human knowledge fits into a s…

April 19, 2026

Games User Research Cookbook

Michał Mycka

Hosted by Rudolf Thomas Inderst

This book offers a comprehensive and practical guide to Games User Research (GUR). Blending theory and hands-on experience, it walks readers through m…

April 16, 2026

Automata

Ibrahim J. Gedeon and Kyle Murray

Hosted by Alfred Marcus

Automata examines how AI and advanced robotics are rapidly surpassing human abilities in fields once thought uniquely ours – from playing chess to dis…