Interviews with digital humanists about their new work
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Tyler Neill discusses the new platform Pāṇḍitya, an online graph visualization tool illustrating connections between works and authors in the Pandit Prosopographical Database of Indic Texts. It also facilitates exploration of the Sanskrit E-Text Inventory (SETI) as an overlay on the Pandit network.
Tyler's blog "Sanskrit and Tech with Tyler" is here.
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Peter Krapp, "Computing Legacies: Digital Cultures of Simulation" (MIT Press, 2024)
Episode 88
Tuesday, May 6, 2025 • Duration 01:10:44
We're pleased to welcome Dr. Peter Krapp, the author of Computing Legacies: Digital Cultures of Simulation (MIT Press, 2024), to the New Books Network.
In Computing Legacies, Peter Krapp explores a media history of simulation to excavate three salient aspects of digital culture. Firstly, he profiles simulation as cultural technique, enabling symbolic work and foregrounding hypothetical literacy. Secondly, he positions simulation as crucial for the preservation of cultural memory, where modeling, emulation, and serious play are constitutive in how we relate to our mediated history. And lastly, despite suggestions that we may already live in a simulation, he interrogates how simulation can serve as critique of the computer age. In tracing our digital heritage, Computing Legacies elucidates inflection points where quantitative data becomes tractable for qualitative evaluations: modeling epidemics for scientific study or entertainment, emulating older devices, turning numerical calculations into music, conducting espionage in virtual worlds, and gamifying higher education. Simulation, this book demonstrates, is pivotal not only to high-tech research and to archives, museums, and the preservation of digital culture but also to our understanding of what it is to live and work under the technical conditions of computing.
Dr. Peter Krapp is a Professor of Film & Media Studies, English, and Music at UC-Irvine.
Your host is Dr. Adam Kriesberg, Assistant Professor at the Simmons University School of Library and Information Science.
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Awfully Viral
Episode 37
Monday, December 23, 2024 • Duration 54:43
It’s summer and we are busy working on episodes for our fourth season. We’ve also rebuilt our website–check out the the fabulous new phantompod.org. There’s other great stuff in store for the podcast, so stay tuned!
But today, I want to share one of my favorite podcasts with you: Will Robin’s Sound Expertise. For those of you into musicology or popular music studies, there’s a great chance you’re already a subscribe. That’s because Will’s show is fantastic and I personally know many music scholars who are devoted fans of this show that features conversations with established and up-and-coming music scholars. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Dr. Robin, you might remember that I quoted his New York Times obituary of R. Murray Schafer in our first episode on Schafer. He has written about music for the Times for at least a decade. He’s also an assistant professor of Musicology at the University of Maryland and the author of the book Industry: Bang on a Can and New Music. Sound Expertise will be dropping its third season in the fall.
The episode you are about to hear is one that I love as a media scholar. Will Robin interviews Dr. Paula Harper about her work on viral music videos and taste, specifically that terrible Rebecca Black video “Friday” that’s probably still rattling around in some dark recess of your brain. Dr. Harper digs into the awful virality of that video and all of its cover versions, discerning what this case study can tell us about genre, gender, and how and why sound travels on the internet. It’s a great discussion and I hope you enjoy it. And by the way, since this interview happened, Paula Harper has joined the faculty of the University of Chicago as an assistant professor of music. So, who says YouTube rots your brain?
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Justin Grimmer et al., "Text as Data: A New Framework for Machine Learning and the Social Sciences" (Princeton UP, 2022)
Episode 118
Monday, September 5, 2022 • Duration 55:38
From social media posts and text messages to digital government documents and archives, researchers are bombarded with a deluge of text reflecting the social world. This textual data gives unprecedented insights into fundamental questions in the social sciences, humanities, and industry. Meanwhile new machine learning tools are rapidly transforming the way science and business are conducted. Text as Data shows how to combine new sources of data, machine learning tools, and social science research design to develop and evaluate new insights.
Text as Data: A New Framework for Machine Learning and the Social Sciences (Princeton UP, 2022) is organized around the core tasks in research projects using text--representation, discovery, measurement, prediction, and causal inference. The authors offer a sequential, iterative, and inductive approach to research design. Each research task is presented complete with real-world applications, example methods, and a distinct style of task-focused research.
Bridging many divides--computer science and social science, the qualitative and the quantitative, and industry and academia--Text as Data is an ideal resource for anyone wanting to analyze large collections of text in an era when data is abundant and computation is cheap, but the enduring challenges of social science remain.
Overview of how to use text as data
Research design for a world of data deluge
Examples from across the social sciences and industry
Peter Lorentzen is economics professor at the University of San Francisco. He heads USF's Applied Economics Master's program, which focuses on the digital economy. His research is mainly on China's political economy.
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Adam Nocek, "Molecular Capture: The Animation of Biology" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
Episode 10
Wednesday, August 17, 2022 • Duration 54:44
In Molecular Capture: The Animation of Biology (University of Minnesota Press, 2021), Adam Nocek, Assistant Professor in the Philosophy of Technology and Science and Technology Studies at Arizona State University, investigates the collusion between entertainment and scientific visualization in the case of molecular animation. “The very same tools that were invented to animate a character like Shrek or Nemo are now being applied to set in motion protein domains and cellular processes.” Opening with this quote by animator and scientist Gaël McGill, the book retraces the complex genealogy of molecular animation and analyses its pretension to scientific value. While the first half of the book deals with “molecular capture” as the cinematographic process of producing moving images of the molecular world, the second half thinks about that same “capture” as a form of governmental rationality, a kind of apparatus rendering life visible and available down to its most fundamental mechanisms. This discussion leads the author to consider the elusiveness of life and how the current codes of molecular animation are blurring the line between knowledge, data, speculation, and imagination. At the source of fascinating images, granting consumers with the impression of directly accessing the invisible processes defining life, molecular animation stands at the intersection of important questions relating to the history of scientific visualization, the evolving relationship between science and entertainment, and the production of biopolitical forms of governance.
Victor Monnin, Ph.D. is an historian of science specialized in the history of Earth sciences. He is also teaching French language and literature to undergraduates.
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Podcasting Academic Research: A Chat about the Nordic Asia Podcast
Episode 143
Friday, August 12, 2022 • Duration 25:11
What is the potential of podcasts to disseminate research based insights? How can a podcast function as a networking and pedagogical tool? And what is so intriguing about a Nordic podcast on Asia?
Born during the pandemic to keep alive the vibrant research community on Asia in the Nordics, the Nordic Asia Podcast began as a collaborative effort between Nordic research institutions. More than two years and over 100 episodes later the podcast is, dare we say, doing better than ever.
Tracing the birth and evolution of the Nordic Asia podcast, Kenneth Bo Nielsen, Duncan McCargo, Outi Luova and Julie Yu-Wen Chen discuss the potential of podcasts to disseminate research based insights, as well as how it can function as a networking and pedagogical tool for teaching Asia studies.
Kenneth Bo Nielsen is an Associate Professor at the dept. of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo and one of the leaders of the Norwegian Network for Asian Studies.
Outi Louva is University Lecturer at the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku.
Duncan McCargo is director of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies and professor of political science in Copenhagen.
Julie Yu-Wen Chen is Professor of Chinese Studies at the Department of Cultures at the University of Helsinki (Finland).
The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, and Asianettverket at the University of Oslo.
We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.
About NIAS: www.nias.ku.dk
Transcripts of the Nordic Asia Podcasts: http://www.nias.ku.dk/nordic-a...
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Twitter, Intellectual Discourse, and Humility
Episode 10
Wednesday, August 10, 2022 • Duration 01:08:45
For this episode of How To Be Wrong, I speak with George Styles, a biochemist and author of the book Contemplation. George is also what we describe these days as an “influencer”—although as we discuss he objects to that label—on social media, with over 37 thousand followers on Twitter. His approach to Twitter is novel in that he focuses on asking probing questions designed to generate discussion, which at times become rather heated. Our conversation moves through topics related to how Twitter is used and how it can be used as a tool for generating civil intellectual discourse.
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“Vaccine: The Human Story”: A Chat with Historian and Podcaster Annie Kelly
Episode 1230
Friday, July 8, 2022 • Duration 01:13:08
“Vaccine: The Human Story” is a podcast and video series that tells the story of the global fight against smallpox, from its earliest history as a folk demon, to the birth of the anti-vax movement, through to its eradication in the 1960s. It is written and hosted by Dr. Annie Kelly.
Dr. Kelly, a specialist in antifeminism, conspiracy theories and the far right, earned her doctorate in American Studies in 2020 from the University of East Anglia. Her dissertation is entitled: “Fear, Hate and Countersubversion: American Antifeminism Online”. She specializes in research related to contemporary social movements, digital discourse analysis and their relation to race, gender and sexuality in American politics. Her writings have appeared in The New York Times and since 2019 she has been the UK correspondent for “QAnon Anonymous”, which The Washington Post named “Podcast of the Year”. Dr. Kelly is currently a postdoctoral researcher with “Everything Is Connected: Conspiracy Theories in the Age of the Internet”.
You can also find "Vaccine: A Human Story" on YouTube.
Michael G. Vann is a professor of world history at California State University, Sacramento. A specialist in imperialism and the Cold War in Southeast Asia, he is the author of The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empires, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam (Oxford University Press, 2018). When he’s not reading or talking about new books with smart people, Mike can be found surfing in Santa Cruz, California.
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WikiVictorian
Episode 67
Monday, June 27, 2022 • Duration 10:52
Helena DiGiusti talks about @WikiVictorian, the Twitter account that she runs. More than a traditional wiki, it embodies the randomness and miscellaneous nature of so much of Victorian cultures. She talks about the origins of the account in her interest in Victorian fashion, art, and history, and how the account has been embraced by enthusiasts across the professional spectrum and around the world.
Like William Morris, she favors the simple criteria of interest and beauty. Per Morris, “If you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” Perhaps more Twitter accounts ought to be like Kelmscott Manor.
Behind WikiVictorian hides someone deeply fascinated by art, history, photography, old things… and specially, everything about the Victorian era and the 19th century. Her name is Helena, and she is a 23 year old anthropologist from Granada, in the south of Spain.
Image: Fall and Winter Catalogue, H. O’Neill and Co.
Music used in promotional material: ‘winter smoke’ by The Owl
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Whitney Trettien, "Cut/Copy/Paste: Fragments from the History of Bookwork" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
Episode 152
Monday, June 27, 2022 • Duration 37:23
Today’s guest is Whitney Trettien whose book Cut/Copy/Paste: Fragments from the History of Bookwork was published through the University of Minnesota Press in 2022. Trettien is a Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, and researches the history of the book spanning print and digital technologies. Cut/Copy/Paste explores makerspaces and collaboratories where paper media were cut up and reassembled into radical, bespoke publications. The book is complemented with a wide array of resources on early modern publishing available on the book’s webpage hosted by the University of Minnesota Press.
John Yargo recently received his PhD in English literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, specializing in the environmental humanities and early modern culture. His articles have been published or are forthcoming in the Journal for Early Modern Culture Studies, Studies in Philology, and Shakespeare Studies.
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