While it’s only for 4 days, I’m back in Boston! And the 36 hour travel day gave me lots of time to listen to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was a great session on disability, communication, and justice in AI at the UC San Diego Design Lab with Anne Marie Piper, Carol Padden, and Alexander Dunn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N57jpbOl8Dw

Next was an interesting talk by Alane Suhr on language use and learning in embodied interactions at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x7BsXe-M88

Next was a timely talk by Giovanni Peri on the contribution of foreign master’s students to US startups at the Immigration Policy Lab https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZKYLc5i0ZE

Next was “Reading Wars” by Don Herzog. This is an excellent dive into how controlling what people are allowed to read, and also who is allowed to read, has been a constant political battle across the centuries in the West. Starting with religious texts, Herzog moves on to abolitionist and other overtly political writings and the violence and legal machinations that attempted to suppress that content. The writing style is extremely informal, and although it's mostly entertaining it can occasionally become grating. I would've also liked more macro data to demonstrate the scale of the issues he identifies. Highly recommend https://press.lse.ac.uk/books/m/10.31389/lsepress.rew 

Next was “Alaska” by Claus M. Naske and Herman E. Slotnick. This book provides a sweeping review of the oft-neglected history of Alaska, focusing mostly on the last 250 years. It's this focus that is my biggest issue with the book - while there is some coverage of the indigenous nations of Alaska, these chapters feel like a speedrun, especially since they're given nearly equal space to single decades in the 20th century. Most of that history will be more familiar, but there is some good detail on a variety of more local political and economic issues https://www.oupress.com/9780806146669/alaska/

Last was “Being and Time” by Martin Heidegger. This is both the best and worst of philosophical works. On the positive side, with significant concentration there's incredible insight to be gleaned here, with Heidegger getting deeply into the nature of existence. On the negative side, this work exhibits the peculiar and pedantic traits of self-important philosophizing (e.g. assuming that etymology tells you anything about what we mean by the word today). In addition, when reading this in the back of your mind is the knowledge that Heidegger was an unapologetic Nazi. You get a strong sense throughout of that early 20th century orientation towards the world - that it exists for human use and that humans naturally move towards "progress." There are many side quests peppered throughout the text that don't really lead anywhere and only peripherally relate to the nature of being, which given the broad, grand claims made here actually weakens a lot of Heidegger's points. This doesn't mean it's not an extremely thought provoking work. It is, albeit one made difficult to parse through overly dense discussion. Rather I can't recommend that someone read the primary text unless using it to evaluate a modern analysis of Heidegger. https://archive.org/details/pdfy-6-meFnHxBTAbkLAv