Listen to this interview of Daniel Gruss, Associate Professor in the Secure Systems group at Graz University of Technology, Institute of Applied Information Processing and Communications, Austria. We talk about asking the right questions when writing, for example, asking not "How should I write that?" but asking instead "How would someone else write that?" Daniel Gruss: "Actual methods and results have almost no value if they don't serve a purpose, and the purpose in research is to show that som...
Jul 09, 2023•55 min•Ep. 128
Listen to this interview of Thorsten Holz, Professor for computer science and faculty at CISPA, the Helmholtz Center for Information Security, in Saarbrücken, Germany. We talk about mentoring, collaboration, writing, and a little more about writing again. Thorsten Holz : "I'm rather open in just sharing ideas with other researchers, even with researchers whom I haven't yet collaborated with. I haven't really had any bad experiences this way so far. Of course, from time to time, we've gotten scoo...
Jul 07, 2023•53 min•Ep. 127
Listen to this interview of Peng Liu, Professor at the College of Information Science and Technology at Pennsylvania State University, and also Director of the Cyber Security Lab. We talk about cold proposals to potential collaborators, we talk about reading across areas and through time, and we talk about how to write as an author and how to write as a reader. Peng Liu : "There's not really any one place a reader can go in a paper in order to find the critical insight. In my understanding, a re...
Jul 04, 2023•51 min•Ep. 126
Listen to this interview of Sascha Fahl, Professor for Computer Science and Faculty for Usable Security and Privacy at CISPA, the Helmholtz Center for Information Security, in Saarbrücken, Germany. We talk about replicable methods, we talk about critical reading, and we talk about the necessity of a network to your research. Sascha Fahl : "I myself practise — and I encourage my PhDs to practice it too — the zero-draft writing approach. This is the approach of writing early, writing often. Becaus...
Jun 23, 2023•49 min•Ep. 125
Many library project plans, from small projects to institution-wide strategic planning committees, follow a linear trajectory: create the plan, do the plan, then review the outcome. While this can be effective, it also sometimes leads to disregarding new information that emerges while executing the plan, making the outcome less effective. Planning processes can also feel forced and predetermined if stakeholder feedback is not seriously considered. When this happens too many times, people stop of...
Jun 19, 2023•43 min•Ep. 8
A clear-eyed examination of the open access movement: past history, current conflicts, and future possibilities. Open access (OA) could one day put the sum of human knowledge at our fingertips. But the goal of allowing everyone to read everything faces fierce resistance. In Athena Unbound: Why and How Scholarly Knowledge Should Be Free for All (MIT Press, 2023), Peter Baldwin offers an up-to-date look at the ideals and history behind OA, and unpacks the controversies that arise when the dream of...
Jun 14, 2023•35 min•Ep. 124
Listen to this interview of Mathias Payer, a security researcher and associate professor at the EPFL School of Computer and Communication Science, leading the HexHive group. We talk about research as a social activity — No researcher can go it alone! Mathias Payer: "Reading and writing are integral parts to the research process. I would even say that there's a split one-third, one-third, one-third: for one-third, you're doing research; for the next third, you're reading about research; and for t...
Jun 07, 2023•53 min•Ep. 123
Exploring what academic podcasting is and what it could be, Ian Cook's Scholarly Podcasting (Routledge, 2023) is the first to consider the why, what, and how academics engage with this insurgent, curious craft. Featuring interviews with 101 podcasting academics, including scholars and teachers of podcasting, this book explores the motivations of scholarly podcasters, interrogates what podcasting does to academic knowledge, and leads potential podcasters through the creation process from beginnin...
Jun 05, 2023•39 min•Ep. 20
Anthony Wilks discusses his career heading up audio-visual projects for the London Review of Books. He tells the story of his winding career, in addition to some great musings about the future of the greater book world. Anthony Wilks is head of audio and video at the London Review of Books. Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jun 04, 2023•44 min•Ep. 122
Listen to this interview of Nick Enfield, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sydney for Language Research and the Sydney Initiative for Truth. We talk about communication as you think it is and also, about communication as it really is. Enfield is the author of Language vs. Reality: Why Language Is Good for Lawyers and Bad for Scientists (MIT Press, 2022). Nick Enfield : "Every scientist does need to be mindful of the power of language to influence — because we always are influencing ...
Jun 01, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 120
Mushtaq Bilal is an academic, content creator, thought leader, and public intellectual. Mushtaq discusses how he built an audience of more than 185,000 followers on Twitter and more than 30,000 on LinkedIn over the last year by helping to simplify the writing process for early career academics. A must-listen for anyone who is thinking about building a community and an author platform online around their research. Avi Staiman is the founder and CEO of Academic Language Experts . Learn more about ...
May 31, 2023•54 min•Ep. 121
Listen to this interview of James Gee, Regents' Professor and Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies at Arizona State University. We talk about too much communication, about too much specialization, and about too much narrativization. We also talk about his books Introducing Discourse Analysis: From Grammar to Society (Routledge, 2018) and What Is a Human?: Language, Mind, and Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). James Gee : "It is absolutely crucial that the early-career rese...
May 30, 2023•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 119
This episode features discussions with Thomas Weaver (Senior Acquisitions Editor for Art and Architecture) and Victoria Hindley (Acquisitions Editor in Visual Culture and Design) about publishing in the fields of art, architecture, and visual culture, as part of our virtual attendance of the 2021 College Art Association Conference. Hosted and produced by Sam Kelly; Mixed by Samantha Doyle; Soundtrack by Kristen Gallerneaux Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 26, 2023•55 min•Ep. 89
Myra Tawfik's book For the Encouragement of Learning: The Origins of Canadian Copyright Law (U Toronto Press, 2023) addresses the contested history of copyright law in Canada, where the economic and reputational interests of authors and the commercial interests of publishers often conflict with the public interest in access to knowledge. It chronicles Canada’s earliest copyright law to explain how pre-Confederation policy-makers understood copyright’s normative purpose. Using government and priv...
May 24, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 6
Medieval books that survive today have been through a lot: singed by fire, mottled by mold, eaten by insects, annotated by readers, cut into fragments, or damaged through well-intentioned preservation efforts. In Holy Digital Grail: A Medieval Book on the Internet (Stanford UP, 2022), Michelle Warren tells the story of one such manuscript—an Arthurian romance with textual origins in twelfth-century England now diffused across the twenty-first century internet. This trajectory has been propelled ...
May 16, 2023•45 min•Ep. 5
As social media is increasingly becoming a standard feature of sociological practice, this timely book The Public and Their Platforms: Public Sociology in an Era of Social Media (Bristol UP, 2021) rethinks the role of these mediums in public sociology and what they can contribute to the discipline in the post-COVID world. It reconsiders the history and current conceptualizations of what sociology is, and analyses what kinds of social life emerge in and through the interactions between ‘intellect...
May 12, 2023•38 min•Ep. 287
Rapid Reviews: COVID-19 brings together urgency and scientific rigor so the world’s researchers can quickly disseminate new discoveries that the public can trust. Amy Brand (Director, The MIT Press) and Vilas Dhar (Trustee, The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation) discuss this new overlay journal, its innovative goals, and its role as a proof-of-concept for new models of peer-review and rapid publishing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 08, 2023•11 min•Ep. 69
Listen to this interview of Jan Recker, Professor for Information Systems and Digital Innovation at the University of Hamburg, Germany and author of Scientific Research in Information Systems: A Beginner's Guide (Springer, 2021). We talk about how your research is what you write. Jan Recker : "Very few of us scientists are gifted readers, and very few of us are gifted writers, but those who are, I do think that they have an advantage in science. It's not that they're the better scientists, but t...
May 03, 2023•47 min•Ep. 118
Listen to this interview of Helen Sword, professor emerita in the School of Humanities and the Centre for Arts and Social Transformation at the University of Auckland, founder of WriteSPACE, an international virtual writing community, and author of Writing with Pleasure (Princeton UP, 2023). We talk about how pleasure is difficult-but-good. Helen Sword : "If you have a text that has not been written with pleasure — it's been like pulling teeth for the author — it's going to feel the same way for...
May 03, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 117
State censorship and cancel culture, trigger warnings and safe spaces, pseudoscience, First Amendment hardball, as well as orthodoxy and groupthink: universities remain a site for important battles in the culture wars. What is the larger meaning of these debates? Are American universities at risk of conceding to mobs and cuddled “snowflake” students and sacrifice the hallowed values of free speech and academic inquiry? Bradford Vivian examines the heated debates over campus misinformation as a l...
May 02, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 131
Writing and publishing are at the heart of most academic and research pursuits. Many potential authors, however, feel lost in the seemingly Everest climbing-like process. There is little formal education that authors receive during their education. In this regard, John Bond’s new book's The Little Guide to Getting Your Journal Article Published: Simple Steps to Success (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023) seeks to pull back the curtain on the process and provide essential information to lead authors to ...
Apr 30, 2023•51 min•Ep. 116
Moroccan Other-Archives: History and Citizenship After State Violence (Fordham UP, 2023) investigates how histories of exclusion and silencing are written and rewritten in a postcolonial context that lacks organized and accessible archives. The book draws on cultural production concerning the “years of lead”—a period of authoritarianism and political violence between Morocco’s independence in 1956 and the death of King Hassan II in 1999—to examine the transformative roles memory and trauma play ...
Apr 30, 2023•59 min•Ep. 2
Quantitative Science Studies (QSS) is a newly launched open access journal that was born out of a collaboration between the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics (ISSI) and the MIT Press. In this episode, Editor-in-Chief Ludo Waltman discusses the origins of QSS, its growing inaugural issue, and its future as a publishing outlet run for and by the scientometric community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 23, 2023•17 min•Ep. 53
“Archivists feel that what their mission is, is to document society. And the question is: how can you document society if you only look at or value or preserve—maybe value is the right word—a particular segment of the expressions of society?” In Archiving Cultures: Heritage, Community and the Making of Records and Memory (Routledge, 2023), Jeannette Bastian defines and models the concept of cultural archives, focusing on how diverse communities express and record their heritage and collective m...
Apr 22, 2023•44 min•Ep. 1
What is an advance contract? Do you need an agent? How do you know which editor to approach with your manuscript? Successfully following the path to academic publishing can be daunting for first-time authors. But it doesn’t have to be. Acquisitions editor Laura Devulis joins us to explain the hidden curriculum, including: How soon you can approach an academic press with your proposal. What it means when your editor offers you an advance contract. How much of your manuscript can be previously pub...
Apr 20, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 158
In this episode, Gita Manaktala, Editorial Director at the MIT Press, and Ellen Finnie, Co-Interim Associate Director for Collections at MIT Libraries, discuss the Ideas series: a hybrid print and open access book series for general readers, that provides fresh, strongly argued, and provocative views of the effects of digital technology on culture, business, government, education, and our lives. Learn more about the full series here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 19, 2023•17 min•Ep. 52
The authors of Data Feminism (2020), Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren Klein, along with Catherine Ahearn, Content Lead at PubPub, discuss the value and process of open peer review, share experiences and best practices, and explore issues surrounding peer review transparency. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 18, 2023•22 min•Ep. 51
Cinegogía is an open-access website devoted to the teaching and study of Latin American cinemas. Bridget Franco, an associate professor of Spanish at College of the Holy Cross, founded and coordinates the website. Cinegogía contains a database of Latin American film as well as resources for teaching and researching film. Teaching resources include syllabi, teaching activities and assignments, and film guides. Cinegogía has a considerable selection of films by and about Black and Indigenous commu...
Apr 14, 2023•58 min•Ep. 222
Jess Polka, executive director of ASAPbio, and Sam Klein of the MIT Press/MIT Media Lab’s Knowledge Futures Group (KFG) and Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society survey and explain open science initiatives and tools. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 11, 2023•16 min•Ep. 44
In the first of four episodes in the MITP Open Access series, Travis Rich, PubPub co-founder and project lead, speaks with Edward Finn, founding director of the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University. They discuss Frankenbook—an open access digital version of the print edition of Mary Shelley’s masterpiece Frankenstein published by the MIT Press in 2017. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 09, 2023•21 min•Ep. 42
