Robert Darnton, director of the University Library and the Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor at Harvard, discusses the emergence of the discipline of the history of the book, the future of books and reading, and his own vision of the ways in which new and old media can reinforce each other, strengthening and transforming the world of learning.
Podcast: Stephen Greenblatt
With respondent Diana Henderson, Stephen Greenblatt speaks on the transformation of literary study in America and his own career as a teacher and writer.
Podcast: Stefan Helmreich, “Submarine Media: Sounding the Sea with Cyborg Anthropology”
A first-person anthropological report on a dive to the seafloor in the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s three-person submersible, Alvin, meditating on the sounds rather that the sights of the dive.
Podcast and video: Communications Forum: “The Campaign and the Media 1”
How have American news media responded to this historic presidential campaign?
Podcast: John Bell, “Playing with Stuff: The Material World in Performance”
The nature and implications of object performance both as a global cultural tradition and as a contemporary medium that dominates our culture.
Podcast: “The Myths and Politics of Media Violence Research”
Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson present findings from their book, Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can D, including the complex ways in which video games may benefit or disadvantage children.
Podcast: “A Conversation with Junot Díaz”
Genre and secondary world construction in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and the failure of realism as a narrative strategy to describe the New World.
