{"podcast":{"title":"The Podcast for Social Research","slug":"the-podcast-for-social-research-1078639","podcast_index_feed_id":1078639,"rss_url":"https://thebrooklyninstitute.libsyn.com/rss","website_url":"http://thebrooklyninstitute.com","image_url":"https://static.libsyn.com/p/assets/1/b/0/8/1b08a8952871520588c4a68c3ddbc4f2/5947113344_copy_4.jpg","author":"Brooklyn Institute for Social Research","episode_count":100,"summary":"From Plato to quantum physics, Walter Benjamin to experimental poetry, Frantz Fanon to the history of political radicalism, The Podcast for Social Research is a crucial part of our mission to forge new, organic paths for intellectual work in the twenty-first century: an ongoing, interdisciplinary series featuring members of the Institute, and occasional guests, conversing about a wide variety of intellectual issues, some perennial, some newly pressing. Each episode centers on a different topic and is accompanied by a bibliography of annotations and citations that encourages further curiosity and underscores the conversation's place in a larger web of cultural conversations.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-04T04:20:23.099438+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-podcast-for-social-research-1078639"},"episode":{"title":"Faculty Spotlight: Alfred Lee and Xafsa Ciise on AI, Big Tech, Race, and Histories of Trauma","slug":"faculty-spotlight-alfred-lee-and-xafsa-ciise-on-ai-big-tech-race-and-histories-of-trauma","published_at":"2025-08-21T21:41:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-podcast-for-social-research-1078639/faculty-spotlight-alfred-lee-and-xafsa-ciise-on-ai-big-tech-race-and-histories-of-trauma","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-podcast-for-social-research-1078639","url":"https://thebrooklyninstitute.libsyn.com/faculty-spotlight-alfred-lee-and-xafsa-ciise-on-ai-big-tech-race-and-histories-of-trauma","audio_url":"https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thebrooklyninstitute/FacultySpotlight_XafsaAlfred_BISR_082225_V4.mp3?dest-id=85319","summary":"In this episode of Faculty Spotlight, hosts Mark and Lauren sit down with faculty Alfred Lee and Xafsa Ciise, colleagues whose shared concerns—with race, bias, politics, human consciousness, and the history of science—have cultivated a fascinating and fruitful cross-disciplinary conversation. Xafsa, a social psychologist by training, kicks off the conversation with description of how she found her way into a historical investigation of trauma and its discourses, after which Alfred, a physicist by training and data scientist in practice, details the social and political questions that animate his concern with digital innovation and data applications. Along the way, their conversation touches on the surprising origins of trauma in mesmerism and animal magnetism; the experimenter's effect; simulation and deception in both trauma studies and AI discourse; scientism's bracketing of politics, and politics' return by way of history; conflicting concepts of \"intelligence\"; contextuality and relationality versus the conceit of universality; Freud, Fanon, and how psychoanalysis thinks about Blackness; the return of eugenics and race IQ discourses; longtermism and what a view to the far-distant future implies about the present; and the dangerously autarkic character of big tech. The Podcast for Social Research is produced by Ryan Lentini. Learn more about upcoming courses on our website . Follow Brooklyn Institute for Social Research on Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / Bluesky .","meta_description":"In this episode of Faculty Spotlight, hosts Mark and Lauren sit down with faculty Alfred Lee and Xafsa Ciise, colleagues whose shared concerns—with race,…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":4300,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-podcast-for-social-research-1078639/episodes/faculty-spotlight-alfred-lee-and-xafsa-ciise-on-ai-big-tech-race-and-histories-of-trauma/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-podcast-for-social-research-1078639/faculty-spotlight-alfred-lee-and-xafsa-ciise-on-ai-big-tech-race-and-histories-of-trauma.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}