From Antarctica to Gamer Theory: Four Author Interviews

Welcome to the Harvard University Press Author Interview Podcasts!

For more interviews with other HUP authors, please follow this link: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/audio/

All interviews are conducted with Host Chris Gondek, producer of Heron & Crane.

Tom Griffiths — Author of Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica

With the release of Werner Herzog's new documentary "Encounters at the End of the World" and summer temperatures climbing above 90 degrees, Antarctica is on people's minds, providing a good way to (mentally) cool off.

From Scott and Shackleton to sled dogs and penguins, stories of Antarctica seize our imagination. In December 2002, environmental historian Tom Griffiths set sail with the Australian Antarctic Division to deliver the new team of winterers. In this beautifully written book, Griffiths reflects on the history of human experiences in Antarctica, taking the reader on a journey of discovery, exploration, and adventure in an unforgettable land.

Listen to the Interview... with Tom Griffiths as he discusses the "otherworldly" nature of Antarctica, the consequences of global warming, and how travel journals can be a form of survival.

Tom Griffiths teaches history and the environment at the Australian National University in Canberra and is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.


McKenzie Wark — Author of Gamer Theory

Ever get the feeling that life's a game with changing rules and no clear sides? Welcome to gamespace, the world in which we live. Where others argue obsessively over violence in games, Wark contends that digital computer games are our society's emergent cultural form, a utopian version of the world as it is. Gamer Theory uncovers the significance of games in the gap between the near-perfection of actual games and the imperfect gamespace of everyday life in the rat race of free-market society.

Listen to the Interview... with McKenzie Wark as he discusses topics ranging from casual gaming to his opinion of Second Life.

McKenzie Wark is Associate Professor of Cultural and Media Studies at Eugene Lang College and The New School for Social Research and also the author of A Hacker Manifesto (Harvard) and Dispositions (Salt Publishing).

Visit McKenzie Wark's website at http://www.ludiccrew.org/wark/

Muriel R. Gillick, M.D. — Author of The Denial of Aging: Perpetual Youth, Eternal Life, and Other Dangerous Fantasies

Someday, as Muriel Gillick points out in this important yet unsettling book, you too will be old. How do you prepare? What will you need? With passion and compassion, Gillick chronicles the stories of elders who have struggled with housing options, with medical care decisions, and with finding meaning in life. Skillfully incorporating insights from medicine, health policy, and economics, she lays out action plans for individuals and for communities.

Listen to the Interview... with Dr. Muriel R. Gillick as she discusses health issues from restructuring Medicare to the social dimension of aging and planning for the future.

Dr. Muriel R. Gillick is Associate Professor of Ambulatory Care and Prevention at Harvard Medical School. She is a staff physician for Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, and she is also on the medical staff of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Faulkner Hospital. She is also the author of Choosing Medical Care in Old Age: What Kind, How Much, When to Stop.

Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh — Author of Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor

In this revelatory book, Sudhir Venkatesh takes us into Maquis Park, a poor black neighborhood on Chicago's Southside, to explore the desperate and remarkable ways in which a community survives. The result is a dramatic narrative of individuals at work, and a rich portrait of a community. But while excavating the efforts of men and women to generate a basic livelihood for themselves and their families, Off the Books offers a devastating critique of the entrenched poverty that we so often ignore in America, and reveals how the underground economy is an inevitable response to the ghetto's appalling isolation from the rest of the country.

Listen to the Interview... with Sudhir Venkatesh as he describes his own participation in the undeground economy as a neutral party and mediator while writing Off the Books, and how this experience shaped his work and feelings on objectivity.

Sudhir Venkatesh is Professor of Sociology and African-American Studies at Columbia University and also author of American Project: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto.