#AcademicRunPlaylist - 12/23/24

Author

Ben Waber
December 23, 2024

A selfie of me in a sea foam green home office room with some black and white sketches on the far wall. I'm a bald, middle-aged, white man with a red beard flecked with white. I'm wearing thick, black-rimmed glasses and a red shirt with cartoonish avatars of 80s action/comedy movies.

It was a good day recuperating at home after the two solid days of driving, and while I lazed around the house I also listened to some talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies' conference on regulating risks and rights in the AI space. I highly recommend the talk by danah boyd advocating for an intervention-focused approach in AI policymaking and an end to technodeterminism
Day 1 (with keynote): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8n4NJx4u6w
Day 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iu5zWCHO-g

Next was an engaging panel on relative merits of public, private, and hybrid approaches to enforcing UK digital competition law on the Digital Markets Research Hub with Grigorios Bacharis, Verity Egerton-Doyle, and Matthew Tweddell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFUoY2tRv9k

Next was a nice pair of talks on the China Shock's effects by Marc Melitz (firm-level responses) and David Dorn (employment and electoral effects of the Trump tariffs) at CEPR - Centre for Economic Policy Research https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E4JPmhHiCk

Next was an interesting discussion with Stephanie Doktor on the racial economies of early jazz at the Hagley Museum and Library https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDXb2ayRVCs

Last was "Racism Without Racists" by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. This book is rigorous, honest, devastating, vital, and (unfortunately) still timely. Combining macro sociological analysis, in-depth interviews, and a biting wit, Bonilla-Silva has produced a masterpiece that lays bare the racism that still lies at the heart of American society. The updates of this book after its initial publication are even more illuminating, continually reinforcing the points made in earlier analyses. I started listening to the audio book version of this with my kids, and it's one of those rare books that has to be absorbed by every generation, and I would argue everyone in society. Highly recommend https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538151419/Racism-without-Racists-Color-Blind-Racism-and-the-Persistence-of-Racial-Inequality-in-America-Sixth-Edition