When you imagine how science and technology will reshape our future, does it excite you, or scare you, or both? Each month, the Future Tense Fiction podcast will introduce you to a short work of science fiction, one that will challenge, surprise and intrigue you. Then host Maddie Stone will talk with the author to explore how their own experiences with technology—from smart weapons, to electronic pets, to virtual reality—informed their writing and their vision.
That’s every month on Future Tense Fiction, a podcast from Slate, Arizona State University, and New America. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. See you in the future.
John Dickerson talks with author Chris Miller about his new book, Chip War: The Fight for The World’s Most Critical Technology.They discuss how semiconductor chips became so important, why everyone is so dependent on Taiwan for chips, and what lessons China can glean from what’s happening in Ukraine.
Tweet us your questions @SlateGabfest or email us at gabfest@slate.com. (Messages could be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)
For decades, there has been a stigma attached to remaining unmarried and childless in the Black community, particularly for women. But a growing part of the Black middle class is single, childfree adults. Does the trend threaten the future of the Black family, or is it time to recognize a different model for family life? On today’s episode of A Word, Jason Johnson is joined by sociologist Kris Marsh, author of “The Love Jones Cohort: Single and Living Alone in the Black Middle Class.”
The Scream franchise returns to theaters this weekend. Since it first debuted in 1996, the racial dynamics of horror films have evolved. And for the first time in generations of scary movies, African American characters are surviving, killing the monsters, or even slaying as horror villains themselves. On today’s episode of A Word, Jason Johnson is joined by Mark Harris, the co-author of The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar, to talk about the evolution of Black horror.
Guest: Mark Harris, writer and co-author of The Black Guy Dies First
Podcast production by Kristie Taiwo-Makanjuola
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Make an impact this Women’s History Month by helping Macy’s on their mission to fund girls in STEM. Go to macys.com/purpose to learn more.
This month World Book Club visits Paris, France to be guests of the iconic bookshop on the Left Bank of the River Seine, Shakespeare & Co. There Harriett Gilbert and a bookshop audience talk to acclaimed French writer Marie Darrieussecq about her extraordinary novel Pig Tales.
Pig Tales is the story of a young woman who works at a shady Parisian massage parlour, becoming a favourite with her lustful clients until, that is, she slowly and alarmingly metamorphoses into a pig.
A dark feminist fable of political and sexual corruption, and a grim warning of what can happen in a society without a soul, Pig Tales scandalised its readers when it first came out and became the most popular first novel published in decades.
(Picture: Marie Darrieussecq. Photo credit: Charles Freger.)
On today’s episode, Rachelle Hampton is joined by Gita Jackson to talk about a video game that has stirred up anger across the internet, Hogwarts Legacy. They discuss the controversy surrounding it, how the game reveals so many holes in JK Rowling’s world building, and why it’s not even fun to play.
Instead of playing Hogwarts Legacy, Gita’s got some recommendations.
Books:
Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer
Vita Nostra, by Maryna and Serhiy Dyachenko
Magic for Liars, by Sarah Gailey
Games:
Persona 5
Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side
Magical Diary
Life Is Strange
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Elden Ring
This podcast is produced by Daniel Schroeder, Rachelle Hampton, and Daisy Rosario.
On this week’s episode of The Waves, Slate senior editor Shannon Palus talks with Heather Havrilesky about the divine tedium of marriage. They discuss Heather’s book, Foreverland and the explosive response the book initially got (especially when Heather called her husband “a heap of laundry”). Later in the show, they dig into what to do when your husband is truly being a little bit of a patriarchal jerk.
In Slate Plus, a behind the scenes look at what goes into writing the Ask Polly column.
Podcast production by Cheyna Roth and Tori Dominguez with editorial oversight by Daisy Rosario and Alicia Montgomery.
Send your comments and recommendations on what to cover to thewaves@slate.com.
Make an impact this Women’s History Month by helping Macy’s on their mission to fund girls in STEM. Go to macys.com/purpose to learn more.
What does “development” mean for Indigenous peoples? Indigenous Economics: Sustaining Peoples and Their Lands (U Arizona Press, 2022) lays out an alternative path showing that conscious attention to relationships among humans and the natural world creates flourishing social-ecological economies.
Economist Ronald L. Trosper draws on examples from North and South America, Aotearoa/New Zealand, and Australia to argue that Indigenous worldviews centering care and good relationships provide critical and sustainable economic models in a world under increasing pressure from biodiversity loss and climate change. He explains the structure of relational Indigenous economic theory, providing principles based on his own and others’ work with tribal nations and Indigenous communities. Trosper explains how sustainability is created at every level when relational Indigenous economic theory is applied—micro, meso, and macro. Good relationships support personal and community autonomy, replacing the individualism/collectivism dichotomy with relational leadership and entrepreneurship. Basing economies on relationships requires changing governance from the top-down approaches of nation-states and international corporations; instead, each community creates its own territorial relationships, creating plurinational relational states. This book offers an important alternative to classic economic theory. In Indigenous Economics, support for Indigenous communities’ development and Indigenous peoples’ well-being go hand-in-hand.
We have long been taught to presume that modern global history began when the “Old World” encountered the “New”, when Christopher Columbus “discovered” America in 1492. But, as Dr. Pennock conclusively shows in this groundbreaking book, for tens of thousands of Aztecs, Maya, Totonacs, Inuit and others—enslaved people, diplomats, explorers, servants, traders—the reverse was true: they discovered Europe.
For them, Europe comprised savage shores, a land of riches and marvels, yet perplexing for its brutal disparities of wealth and quality of life, and its baffling beliefs. The story of these Indigenous Americans abroad is a story of abduction, loss, cultural appropriation, and, as they saw it, of apocalypse.
From the Brazilian king who met Henry VIII to the Aztecs who mocked up human sacrifice at the court of Charles V; from the Inuk baby who was put on show in a London pub to the mestizo children of Spaniards who returned “home” with their fathers; from the Inuit who harpooned ducks on the Avon river to the many servants employed by Europeans of every rank: here are a people who were rendered exotic, demeaned, and marginalized, but whose worldviews and cultures had a profound impact on European civilization.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.
