Lee Vinsel

Man, this is beautiful. I'm going to use this image in a lot of future talks when I critique idealist forms of explanation in the humanities and social sciences that act as if ideas move and do things on their own. ChatGPT FTW.

My buddy and soon-to-be podcast cohost @benwaterhouse.bsky.social has written one of my favorite pieces yet critically connecting 1960s counter-culture to the rise of "neoliberalism" - "Big Brother and the Holding Company: What the 1960s Did for Neoliberalism."
benjaminwaterhouse.com/wp-content/u...

Good question! I will ping Tom and ask him.

Very excited about this week's Peoples & Things episode featuring historian of computing Tom Haigh talking about his forthcoming book with the working title, _Artificial Intelligence: The History of a Brand_.

newbooksnetwork.com/111-thomas-h...

Very cool, man. Let's stay in touch as you do this. I'm quite interested in the topic.

Nice. I was thinking about you and horses a day or two ago. Is this part of your current project?

A lot of historians of the automobile, including myself most days, argue that the effects of automotive mass production only really come online in the 20s. Part of the story?

It's an interesting question. My sense is that this whole effort started because of a real perceived organizational problem having to do with college application essays, and then grew out from there. My sense is that part of it was bottom up. Relations to outside vendors is a great question.

I actually know the guy, a faculty member, who built that AI tool. He's an interesting and thoughtful person, and he's given guest lectures in some of my courses.

New Peoples & Things episode this week features Verena Halsmayer talking about her award-winning book, _Managing Growth in Miniature: Solow’s Model as an Artifact_, including how it relates to the economics of technological change.

newbooksnetwork.com/managing-gro...

Trillions Spent and Big Software Projects Are Still Failing AI won’t solve IT’s management problems

I enjoyed Bob Charette's new piece at IEEE Spectrum, "Trillions Spent and Big Software Projects Are Still Failing." I've long believed this is one of many factors at play in the "productivity paradox" of computing.

spectrum.ieee.org/amp/it-manag...

Hey, y'all! This week we have a special episode of Peoples & Things - a recent livestream featuring very special guest host danah boyd talking with Cory Doctorow about his new book, _Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It_.

newbooksnetwork.com/cory-doctoro...

Basically since they emerged in a professional sense in Germany in the late-18th and early-19th centuries!

Excellent to have danah boyd on the same call as Cory. Lovely chat. So many analogies, “further complications”, and wry laughs per minute!

Permanent Crisis Leads scholars and anyone who cares about the humanities into more effectively analyzing the fate of the humanities and digging into the very idea of the humanities as a way to find meaning and cohere...

Hey, buddy! Would be fun to revisit.

Recently I have also become interested in the flipside of this thought: Which is how the humanities have always defined themselves in opposition to the sciences, business, technology, and so on. I have found this book helpful. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

No haven't. Thanks for the idea!

How Government Made the U.S. into a Manufacturing Powerhouse Podcast Episode · Peoples & Things · 11/10/2025 · 1h 10m

Great episode of Peoples & Things today featuring Colleen Dunlavy, Emeritus Professor of History at University of Wisconsin-Madison, talking about her recent book, Small, Medium, Large: How Government Made the U.S. A history of standards oooh la la. 😍😍

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h...

Periodic reposting of the secret seal of the American Historical Association.

Its image: a wet blanket.

One motto: "Historians - we are here to bum you out."

(Grainy because I risked my life to smuggle this out of a secret history ritual.)

YouTube video by Peoples & Things Cory Doctorow on Enshittification, with danah boyd and Lee Vinsel

ICYMI: Join us tonight at 7pm ET for a special livestream edition of Peoples & Things featuring Cory Doctorow and special guest host @zephoria.bsky.social talking about Cory's new book, _Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It_.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjFv...

#ICYMI: Tonight at 7 PM, ET (6 PM, CT), @zephoria.bsky.social & Cory Doctorow discuss the #enshittification 💩 of the Internet on a special live edition of @leev.bsky.social's Peoples & Things podcast!

#histSTM #histsci #histtech #STS 🗃️📜

107: Kate Epstein on How Twentieth-Century Technology Theft Built the National-Security State” (U Chicago Press, 2024) – Peoples & Things In this episode I sit down with Kate Epstein, an associate professor of history at Rutgers University-Camden, as she details her research on the intersection of defense contracting, intellectual…

Kate Epstein discussed her new book, ANALOG SUPERPOWERS, with @leev.bsky.social on Peoples & Things! Listen to learn about the intersection of defense contracting, intellectual property, and government secrecy in Great Britain and the United States.

Join us on Monday November 3 at 7pm ET for a Peoples & Things livestream featuring Cory Doctorow @pluralistic.net.web.brid.gy on his book, _Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It_, with special guest host @zephoria.bsky.social!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjFv...

ARL PI26: Keynote Announcement—Lee Vinsel — Association of Research Libraries February 11–12  ᐧ  Chicago-Rosemont Be honest: Do you hear people use the term “innovation” without fully appreciating what it entails? Do you wish there were a way to distinguish “innovation-speak”.....

Do you wish there were a way to distinguish “innovation-speak” from actual, sustainable #innovation? Come to the 2026 ARL President’s Institute #PI26! @leev.bsky.social will foster realistic conversations around necessary changes to truly unlock innovation in #libraries bit.ly/PI26Vinsel

Read an enlightening interview with Lee Vinsel about "Using Podcasts to Humanize Scholars" in the new issue of Technology and Culture via @projectmuse.bsky.social

muse.jhu.edu/article/971306

My theory about how my dogs think about barking at delivery drivers - Works every time, the enemy always drives away.

Hard for me to put into words how touched I was when the editors of Technology & Culture, which I've been reading for half my life, interviewed me about Peoples & Things, the technology studies podcast I make with a production team here at Virginia Tech.

doi.org/10.1353/tech...

Folks, asking for a friend: Are there any good, short, clear pieces that you use to teach students about the history of the Dot-Com bubble and bust?

Extra points for these traits: Written as narrative history, chapter/article length, free or easily obtainable.

Well done. I especially appreciated Ariel's attention to the real history of . . . . interchangeable parts - ooh la la.

We've had a lot of great episodes of Peoples & Things recently. This week's features Whitney Laemmli talking about her neat forthcoming book, _Making Movement Modern: Science, Politics, and the Body in Motion_.

newbooksnetwork.com/whitney-laem...

'Be Curious, Not judgmental' or What AI Critics Get Wrong! Listen now | My conversation with Lee Vinsel, Assistant Professor and creator of People & Things

I really enjoyed and was grateful for the opportunity to go on Charley Johnson's Untangled podcast to talk about my essay, "Against Narcissistic-Sociopathic Technology Studies, or Why Do People USE Technologies?"

untangled.substack.com/p/be-curious...

It was published as part of a special issue on Interventionist Knowledges edited by my friends Eric Hounshell and Verena Halsmeyer. The special issue examines cases where policymakers and others tried to "apply" social scientific knowledge to policy problems.