About MIT Press

The MIT Press Podcast features exclusive interviews and content that draw on the topics, themes, and trends explored in our books and journals.

NBN Episodes hosted by MIT Press:

The Digital Mind: How Science Is Redefining Humanity

July 27, 2023

The Digital Mind

Arlindo Oliveira
Hosted by MIT Press
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What do computers, cells, and brains have in common? Computers are electronic devices designed by humans; cells are biological entities crafted by evo…

Codename Revolution: The Nintendo Wii Platform

July 26, 2023

Codename Revolution

Steven E. Jones and George K. Thiruvathukal
Hosted by MIT Press
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The Nintendo Wii, introduced in 2006, helped usher in a moment of retro-reinvention in video game play. This hugely popular console system, codenamed …

In Praise of Reason: Why Rationality Matters for Democracy

July 25, 2023

In Praise of Reason

Michael P. Lynch
Hosted by MIT Press
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Why does reason matter, if (as many people seem to think) in the end everything comes down to blind faith or gut instinct? Why not just go with what y…

Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist

July 24, 2023

Consciousness

Christof Koch
Hosted by MIT Press
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What links conscious experience of pain, joy, color, and smell to bioelectrical activity in the brain? How can anything physical give rise to nonphysi…

Net Smart: How to Thrive Online

July 23, 2023

Net Smart

Howard Rheingold
Hosted by MIT Press

Like it or not, knowing how to make use of online tools without being overloaded with too much information is an essential ingredient to personal succ…

The Future Was Here: The Commodore Amiga

July 22, 2023

The Future Was Here

Jimmy Maher
Hosted by MIT Press

Long ago, in 1985, personal computers came in two general categories: the friendly, childish game machine used for fun (exemplified by Atari and Commo…

Networked: The New Social Operating System

July 21, 2023

Networked

Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman
Hosted by MIT Press
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Daily life is connected life, its rhythms driven by endless email pings and responses, the chimes and beeps of continually arriving text messages, twe…

Infectious Behavior: Brain-Immune Connections in Autism, Schizophrenia, and Depression

July 20, 2023

Infectious Behavior

Paul H. Patterson
Hosted by MIT Press
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In Infectious Behavior, neurobiologist Paul Patterson examines the involvement of the immune system in autism, schizophrenia, and major depressive dis…

Indra’s Net and the Midas Touch: Living Sustainably in a Connected World

July 19, 2023

Indra’s Net and the Midas Touch

Leslie Paul Thiele
Hosted by MIT Press
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We live today in a global web of interdependence, connected technologically, economically, politically, and socially. As a result of these expanding a…

Hello Avatar: Rise of the Networked Generation

July 18, 2023

Hello Avatar

B. Coleman
Hosted by MIT Press
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Hello Avatar Or, {llSay(0, Hello, Avatar ); is a tiny piece of user-friendly code that allows us to program our virtual selves. In Hello Avatar, B. Co…

Small, Gritty, and Green: The Promise of America's Smaller Industrial Cities in a Low-Carbon World

July 17, 2023

Small, Gritty, and Green

Catherine Tumber
Hosted by MIT Press
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America's once-vibrant small-to-midsize cities--Syracuse, Worcester, Akron, Flint, Rockford, and others--increasingly resemble urban wastelands. Gutte…

The Silent Epidemic: Coal and the Hidden Threat to Health

July 16, 2023

The Silent Epidemic

Alan H. Lockwood
Hosted by MIT Press

We will not find “exposure to burning coal” listed as the cause of death on a single death certificate, but tens of thousands of deaths from asthma, c…

Working on Mars: Voyages of Scientific Discovery with the Mars Exploration Rovers

July 15, 2023

Working on Mars

William J. Clancey
Hosted by MIT Press

Geologists in the field climb hills and hang onto craggy outcrops; they put their fingers in sand and scratch, smell, and even taste rocks. Beginning …

Take Back the Center: Progressive Taxation for a New Progressive Agenda

July 14, 2023

Take Back the Center

Peter S. Wenz
Hosted by MIT Press
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Midcentury America was governed from the center, a bipartisan consensus of politicians and public opinion that supported government spending on educat…

Logistic Clusters: Delivering Value and Driving Growth

July 13, 2023

Logistic Clusters

Yossi Sheffi
Hosted by MIT Press
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Why is Memphis home to hundreds of motor carrier terminals and distribution centers? Why does the tiny island-nation of Singapore handle a fifth of th…

Borges and Memory: Encounters with the Human Brain

July 12, 2023

Borges and Memory

Rodrigo Quian Quiroga
Hosted by MIT Press
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Imagine the astonishment felt by neuroscientist Rodrigo Quian Quiroga when he found a fantastically precise interpretation of his research findings in…

The Art of Failure: An Essay on the Pain of Playing Video Games

July 11, 2023

The Art of Failure

Jesper Juul
Hosted by MIT Press
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We may think of video games as being "fun," but in The Art of Failure, Jesper Juul claims that this is almost entirely mistaken. When we play video ga…

Robot Futures

July 10, 2023

Robot Futures

Illah Reza Nourbakhsh
Hosted by MIT Press
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With robots, we are inventing a new species that is part material and part digital. The ambition of modern robotics goes beyond copying humans, beyond…

What Was Contemporary Art?

July 9, 2023

What Was Contemporary Art?

Richard Meyer
Hosted by MIT Press
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Contemporary art in the early twenty-first century is often discussed as if the very idea of art that is contemporary is new. Yet all works of art wer…

Ambient Commons: Attention in the Age of Embodied Information

July 8, 2023

Ambient Commons

Malcolm McCullough
Hosted by MIT Press
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The world is filling with ever more kinds of media, in ever more contexts and formats. Glowing rectangles have become part of the scene; screens, larg…

Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet

July 7, 2023

Spam

Finn Brunton
Hosted by MIT Press
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The vast majority of all email sent every day is spam, a variety of idiosyncratically spelled requests to provide account information, invitations to …

Moving Innovation: A History of Computer Animation

July 6, 2023

Moving Innovation

Tom Sito
Hosted by MIT Press
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Computer graphics (or CG) has changed the way we experience the art of moving images. Computer graphics is the difference between Steamboat Willie and…

Alelard to Apple: The Fate of American Colleges and Universities

July 5, 2023

Alelard to Apple

Richard A. DeMillo
Hosted by MIT Press
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The vast majority of American college students attend two thousand or so private and public institutions that might be described as the Middle—reputab…

The Outer Limits of Reason: What Science, Mathematics, and Logic Cannot Tell Us

July 4, 2023

The Outer Limits of Reason

Noson S. Yanofsky
Hosted by MIT Press
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Many books explain what is known about the universe. This book investigates what cannot be known. Rather than exploring the amazing facts that science…