Oct 28
The Fog of Accountability: How Institutions Keep Voters from Holding Their Local Governments Accountable with Justin de Benedictis-Kessner (U Chicago Press, 2026)
In the United States, hundreds of thousands of elected and appointed officials serve more than 50,000 subnational governments, making important decisions about services ranging from education to infrastructure to policing. The provision of critical city services shapes citizens’ ... Show More
47m 48s
Oct 26
Carceral Utopia: A Global History of Model Prisons with Gregory Salle (Polity, 2026)
What underpins the legitimacy of the prison system in the twenty-first century? Despite numerous challenges and setbacks, there is still a widespread belief that prisons can be improved in a socially progressive way. Even today, 'model prisons' are being built that seek to fix th ... Show More
46m 38s
Sep 2025
Darcie Deangelo et al., "Demilitarizing the Future" (Anthem Press, 2025)
Demilitarizing the Future (Anthem Press, 2025) draws from art, anthropology, and activism to investigate the entrenchment of militarism in everyday lives and consider novel imaginaries of its dissolution--of peacemaking, community, and shared equitable futures. This book will be ... Show More
50m 25s
Dec 2024
Andy Hines, "Imagining After Capitalism" (Triarchy Press, 2025)
Imagining After Capitalism (Triarchy Press, 2025) is the culmination of a decade-long exploration of what comes next after capitalism. It leverages previous work in developing foresight methodologies, which are featured in two previous books: Teaching about the Future and Thinkin ... Show More
44m 44s
Mar 2022
How science fiction can shape our reality | Your Undivided Attention
The meta-crisis is so vast: climate change, exponential technology, addiction, polarization and more. How do we grasp it, let alone take steps to address it? One of the thinking tools we have at our disposal is science fiction. To the extent that we co-evolve with our stories, sc ... Show More
28m 14s
Feb 2024
The Future of the Future: A Discussion with Jonathan White
"An air of finality pervades today’s world." That is the opening sentence of Jonathan White’s book In the Long Run: The Future as a Political Idea (Profile, 2024). What role, the book asks, has the idea of "the future" played in past politics? What role does it play in contempora ... Show More
41m 56s
Aug 2019
The power to think ahead in a reckless age | Bina Venkataraman
In a forward-looking talk, author Bina Venkataraman answers a pivotal question of our time: How can we secure our future and do right by future generations? She parses the mistakes we make when imagining the future of our lives, businesses and communities, revealing how we can re ... Show More
13m 10s
Oct 2024
Gerald Sim, "Screening Big Data: Films That Shape Our Algorithmic Literacy" (Routledge, 2024)
Screening Big Data: Films that Shape Our Algorithmic Literacy (Routledge, 2024) examines the influence of key films on public understanding of big data and the algorithmic systems that structure our digitally mediated lives.From star-powered blockbusters to civic-minded documenta ... Show More
1h 6m
Nov 2024
Brett Bowden, "Now Is Not the Time: Inside Our Obsession with the Present" (Iff Books, 2024)
Human beings have an overwhelming tendency to overemphasize the significance of the present without considering context or historical perspective. For many, here and now is as good as it gets - we have steadily progressed from a savage past, and all we have to look forward to is ... Show More
27m 37s
Forest fires, droughts, and rising sea levels beg a nagging question: have we lost our capacity to act on the future? Dr. Liliana Doganova’s book Discounting the Future: The Ascendancy of a Political Technology (Princeton University Press, 2024) sheds new light on this anxious query. It argues that our relationship to the future has been trapped in the gears ... Show More
