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Undisciplined: The History Of Working From Home

Remington Rand Papers: Advertising and Sales Promotion Department—Typewriter Division; Hagley Museum, Wilmington, Del.

During the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of Americans who had been used to working from an office found themselves working from home. But while this might have felt like a very sudden shift, it’s part of a historic movement toward home-based work. This week, we’ll dive into that history — and some of its really nefarious themes.

Elizabeth Patton is an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Her research focuses on historical representations of gender and race in TV and film, representations of urbanism and suburbanism in popular culture, and the impact of communication technologies on our sense of place and space – and it’s that last category of her studies that she deals with in her new book, Easy Living: The Rise of the Home Office.   

Matthew LaPlante has reported on ritual infanticide in Northern Africa, insurgent warfare in the Middle East, the legacy of genocide in Southeast Asia, and gang violence in Central America. But a few years back, something donned on him: Maybe the news doesn't have to be brutally depressing all the time. Today, he balances his continuing work on more heartbreaking subjects by writing books about the intersection of science, human health and society, including the New York Times best-selling Lifespan with geneticist David Sinclair and the Nautilus Award-winning Longevity Plan with cardiologist John Day. His first solo book, Superlative, looks at what scientists are learning by studying organisms that have evolved in record-setting ways, and his is currently at work on another book about embracing the inevitability of human-caused climate change with an optimistic outlook on the future.