I was able to get out for a short run in the early evening, and while getting a last taste of summer weather I listened to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was a fantastic talk by Maneesh Agrawala on new interface designs for graphic creation with generative AI at the CMU Robotics Institute. I really think it's approaches like this, rather than bigger models, that's going to yield more important gains moving forward. Highly recommend https://youtu.be/0-diCMEpOuw?is=bOcOV8vT0n_G0DWs

Next was “Country of Lords” by Kim Phillips-Fein. This is a rigorous examination of different American thinkers who focused on building an intellectual foundation for the maintenance of an unequal society. If you've read a book by Slobodian this is very much in the same vein, and it's enlightening but painful to slog through the pretty disgusting writings of these folks. This book gets stronger as it continues, with extremely glaring omissions early on around slavery, Native American dispossession, and gender equality. It's nearly unforgivable, but if one views the book as instead narrowly focused on particular writings it's bearable, especially because there are some essential insights that come out of those sections. Highly recommend https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324074441

Next was “The Transit of Empire” by Jodi A. Byrd. This book gets better as it continues, moving from a narrow analysis of some pieces of fiction and their writers to a holistic analysis of different colonialism related events throughout US history. The chapters on the Cherokee Nation and Hawaii were particularly insightful, with Byrd exploring the historical context and intersections between the experiences of different groups. Wading through the first few chapters might be a bit tough if you haven't read other critical studies books, but in that case I would just start at chapter 3 https://www.upress.umn.edu/9780816676415/the-transit-of-empire/