#AcademicRunPlaylist - 8/6/25

We've had record-breaking heat in Japan the last few days, but while sheltering indoors I listened to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was a great pair of talks by Elvis Imafidon(disability in Africa) and Julie Maybee (African philosophy of disability) at #PhiDisSocCh5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1ef2UISobg

Next was an excellent slate of talks by Jane Dryden (autism and unmasking), August Gorman (neurodivergent behavior and injustice), and Abigail Gosselin (mental illness stigma, sociality, and neoliberalism) at #PhiDisSocCh5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90sSyWhAyoE

Next was a thought-provoking pair of talks by Agnès Berthelot-Raffard (disability justice in academia) and C. Dalrymple-Fraser (crumpled virtue) at #PhiDisSocCh5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnDWeC5np68

Next was "Gods and Robots" by Adrienne Mayor. While it contains passing references to ancient technological myths from India and China, this book is essentially exclusively focused on reviewing Greek and Roman myths around technology. The only section where cultural exchange and myth influence is explored is in the last half of the final chapter, which is by far the highlight of the book. Mayor mixes in some more recent references but exactly if/how these ancient myths led to more modern science fiction and technological development is unexplored. Sections on recent advances in AI and robotics are particularly grating - Mayor parrots most doomer talking points uncritically and describes how these technologies work extremely poorly. I know it's not her area of expertise, but the book would be much improved if those parts of the book were left out. Overall this book is a good summary of myths in this area from a particular part of the world, but if that's not of interest it's skippable https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691183510/gods-and-robots

Last was "Empire, Incorporated" by Philip Stern. This book nicely reviews the formation and evolution of British Colonial corporations, cataloguing the legal tools that individuals and the government used to deploy corporate forces across the globe to further British interests and extract wealth. There aren't many details or analysis of the operations of these firms or their impact on local populations and the world more broadly, which feels like a missed opportunity given the legwork done to assemble this wide-ranging history https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674988125