logo
episode-header-image
Feb 2025
1h 26m

Gabriella Coleman on Hackers Cultures (P...

NEW BOOKS NETWORK
About this episode

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, and guest host, Paula Bialski, Associate Professor for Digital Sociology at the University of St. Gallen in St. Gallen, Switzerland, interview Gabriella Coleman, Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University, about her long career studying hacker cultures. Topics include how hacking has changed over time, the different colored “hats” used to describe different hacker ethoses, the aesthetic dimensions of hacking including how poorly written code leads to moral outrage, and how Biella may soon found a new field of Critical Mold Studies. Professor Coleman’s books include Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking and Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous. Professor Bialski, a former P&T guest, is the author of Middletech: Software Work and the Culture of Good Enough.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

Up next
Oct 5
John Mathias, "Uncommon Cause: Living for Environmental Justice in Kerala" (U California Press, 2024)
How can activists strike a balance between fighting for a cause and sustaining relationships with family, friends, and neighbors? In this episode John Mathias joins host Elena Sobrino to talk about Uncommon Cause: Living for Environmental Justice in Kerala (2024, University of Ca ... Show More
54m 27s
Oct 3
Deepa Das Acevedo, "The War on Tenure" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
As academia increasingly comes under attack in the United States, The War on Tenure (Cambridge UP, 2025) steps in to demystify what professors do and to explain the importance of tenure for their work. Deepa Das Acevedo takes readers on a backstage tour of tenure-stream academia ... Show More
1h 2m
Oct 3
Jürgen Schaflechner, "Hinglaj Devi: Identity, Change, and Solidification at a Hindu Temple in Pakistan" (Oxford UP, 2018)
About two hundred kilometers west of the city of Karachi, in the desert of Baluchistan, Pakistan, sits the shrine of the Hindu Goddess Hinglaj. Despite the temple's ancient Hindu and Muslim history, an annual festival at Hinglaj has only been established within the last three dec ... Show More
1h 26m
Recommended Episodes
Feb 2024
What Can Anonymous & Hacker Collectives Teach Us About Internet Activism?
In 2008, Anonymous posted a video declaring war against Scientology. Some people flocked to join the hacker collective while corporations started re-evaluating their security protocols. This week on Untextbooked, producer Caroline Somers dives into the history of the hacker colle ... Show More
23m 51s
Nov 2023
Wendy H. Wong, "We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age" (MIT Press, 2023)
Our data-intensive world is here to stay, but does that come at the cost of our humanity in terms of autonomy, community, dignity, and equality? In We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age (MIT Press, 2023), Wendy H. Wong argues that we cannot allow that to happen. Exploring ... Show More
56m 51s
Jul 2017
Hansa Market takedown. Recovery from EternalBlue exploits is a long slog. Banking malware rising. Power grid vulnerabilities. Devil's Ivy and the IoT. A look at criminal markets.
In today's podcast we hear about an international raid that took down the illicit Hansa Market—which, it turns out, the Dutch National Police had covertly taken over for about a week. Recovery from WannaCry and NotPetya continues its long slog. Banking malware is on the rise in t ... Show More
23m 1s
Aug 2024
“Security is an Illusion” Ethical Hacker Exposes Child Predators & Tools To Protect Against Hackers | PBD Podcast | Ep. 460
Patrick Bet-David sits down with Ryan Montgomery, a renowned ethical hacker known for his expertise in cybersecurity and passion for child safety. Montgomery, who has been at the forefront of exposing online predators, shares insights into his journey as a hacker, his motivations ... Show More
2h 4m
May 2023
Hacking the nutrition job market, with Assoc. Prof. Helen Vidgen
Helen Vidgen is an Associate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics at the Queensland University of Technology. This is Part One of a Two-part episode. In this first episode we go through Helen’s incredible career journey in public health and community nutrition and dive deep into ... Show More
52m 58s
Aug 2024
Racism Rears its Ugly Head ... Again
Just as soon as Kamala Harris' presidential campaign began nearly four weeks ago, so too did the ugly, age-old racist attacks, with Donald Trump questioning his rival's race in a sit-down interview with Black journalists. Bianna speaks with Randall Kennedy, a law professor at Har ... Show More
1h 1m
Sep 4
What’s the evidence for vaccines?
US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr announced plans this week to cancel $500 million dollars of funding for mRNA vaccine development. The research was focusing on trying to counter viruses that cause diseases such as the flu and Covid-19.Marnie Chesterton is joined by Profess ... Show More
28m 11s
Jul 2024
Is This the Death of Harvard? - Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author and Harvard College Professor. One of the world's leading authorities on language and the mind, he is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. P ... Show More
1h 3m
Apr 2025
From the Internet’s Beginnings to Our Understanding of Consciousness, This Editor Has Seen It All
Senior mind and brain editor Gary Stix has covered the breadth of science and technology over the past 35 years at Scientific American. He joins host Rachel Feltman to take us through the rise of the Internet and the acceleration of advancement in neuroscience that he’s covered t ... Show More
20m 15s
Aug 2023
Chris Dietz, "Self-Declaration in the Legal Recognition of Gender" (Routledge, 2022)
Self-Declaration in the Legal Recognition of Gender (Routledge, 2023) is a socio-legal study that offers a critique of what it means to self-declare with regard to legal gender. Based on empirical research conducted in Denmark, the book engages in some of the most controversial i ... Show More
1h 13m