New Books Network Podcast

Peoples & Things June 5, 2023

The History of 19th Century Quarantine Politics: A Conversation with David S. Barnes

A Conversation with David S. Barnes

David S. Barnes

Hosted by Lee Vinsel

David S. Barnes, Associate Professor of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania, talks about his book, Lazaretto: How Philadelphia Used an Unpopular Quarantine Based on Disputed …

Disability Studies June 3, 2023

Dyslexia

A History

Philip Kirby and Margaret J. Snowling

Hosted by Shu Wan

Listen:

In 1896 the British physician William Pringle Morgan published an account of “Percy,” a “bright and intelligent boy, quick at games, and in no way inferior to others of his …

Indian Ocean World May 29, 2023

Histories of Health and Materiality in the Indian Ocean World

Medicine, Material Culture and Trade, 1600-2000

Anne Gerritsen and Burton Cleetus

Hosted by Ahmed Almaazmi

Histories of Health and Materiality in the Indian Ocean World: Medicine, Material Culture and Trade, 1600-2000 (Bloomsbury, 2023): Introducing materiality into the study of the history of medicine, this volume hones …

History of Science May 21, 2023

Horizons

The Global Origins of Modern Science

James Poskett

Hosted by Victor Monnin

In Horizons: A Global History of Science (Mariner Books, 2022), James Poskett, Associate Professor in the History of Science and Technology at the University of Warwick, begins by asking, “Where …

History of Science May 20, 2023

Split and Splice

A Phenomenology of Experimentation

Hans-Jörg Rheinberger

Hosted by Victor Monnin

In Split & Splice: A Phenomenology of Experimentation (University of Chicago Press, 2023), Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, director emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, investigates …

The Future of . . . with Owen Bennett-Jones May 19, 2023

The Future of the Human Heart

A Discussion with Vincent M. Figueredo

Vincent M. Figueredo

Hosted by Owen Bennett-Jones

Long considered the most important of all organs, the human heart has fascinated artists and scientists alike. Listen to cardiologist Vincent Figueredo discuss knowledge of and attitudes towards the heart …

Princeton UP Ideas Podcast May 15, 2023

Period

The Real Story of Menstruation

Kate Clancy

Hosted by Mark Klobas

Menstruation is something half the world does for a week at a time, for months and years on end, yet it remains largely misunderstood. Scientists once thought of an individual's …

Disability Studies May 14, 2023

Disability Dialogues

Advocacy, Science, and Prestige in Postwar Clinical Professions

Andrew J. Hogan

Hosted by Shu Wan

Disability activism has fundamentally changed American society for the better--and along with it, the views and practices of many clinical professionals. After 1945, disability self-advocates and family advocates pushed for …

Philosophy May 10, 2023

Realism for Realistic People

A New Pragmatist Philosophy of Science

Hasok Chang

Hosted by Carrie Figdor

For a certain kind of standard realist, science aims at getting the absolute truth about the universe. For Hasok Chang, this view is unrealistic because we have no way of …

Ancient History May 10, 2023

The Scent of Ancient Magic

Britta K. Ager

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Magic was a fundamental part of the Greco-Roman world. Curses, erotic spells, healing charms, divination, and other supernatural methods of trying to change the universe were everyday methods of coping …

Medicine May 10, 2023

Emotions and Surgery in Britain, 1793-1912

Michael Brown

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh

In this innovative analytical account of the place of emotion and embodiment in nineteenth-century British surgery, Michael Brown examines the changing emotional dynamics of surgical culture for both surgeons and …

MIT Press Podcast May 8, 2023

Nancy D. Campbell on Naloxone

Pharmacological Histories Ep. 1

Nancy D. Campbell

Hosted by MIT Press

Drawing on interviews with approximately sixty advocates, drug users, former users, friends, families, witnesses, clinicians, and scientists; Nancy D. Campbell has drawn together a history of a defining tragedy of …

MIT Press Podcast May 2, 2023

Break on Through

Radical Psychiatry and the American Counterculture

Lucas Richert

Hosted by MIT Press

In Break On Through, Lucas Richert explores Anti-psychiatry, psychedelics, and radical challenges to psychiatry and the conventional treatment of mental health in the 1970s. In this interview Lucas discusses the …

Biography April 30, 2023

Ralph Edwards: Rare Events

The Inside Story of a Worldwide Quest for Safer Medicines

Ian Hembrow

Hosted by Victoria Phillips

Medical treatments designed to help people can also be harmful or fatal. Around 2.5 million people die this way each year. So if any kind of medicine makes someone unwell …

MIT Press Podcast April 26, 2023

Contraception

A Concise History

Donna J. Drucker

Hosted by MIT Press

An interview with Donna J. Drucker, author of Contraception, from The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series. We discuss reproductive justice, the history of contraceptive technology and how the future of …

Political Science April 24, 2023

Three Generations, No Imbeciles

Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell

Paul A. Lombardo

Hosted by Susan Liebell

“Three generations of imbeciles are enough” were the infamous words U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote in 1927. In Buck v. Bell, an almost unanimous Court upheld …

Early Modern History April 23, 2023

Murder and Madness on Trial

A Tale of True Crime from Early Modern Bologna

Mònica Calabritto

Hosted by Jana Byars

Monica Calabritto of Hunter College talks to us today about her new book, Murder and Madness on Trial: A Tale of True Crime from Early Modern Bologna, out this year …

Medicine April 21, 2023

Diabetes

A History of Race and Disease

Arleen Tuchman

Hosted by Laura Stark

Arleen Marcia Tuchman’s book, Diabetes: A History of Race and Disease (Yale UP, 2020), tells the American history of a disease that continues to defy categorizations. Researchers for more than a …

Anthropology April 14, 2023

Participant Observers

Anthropology, Colonial Development, and the Reinvention of Society in Britain

Freddy Foks

Hosted by Alex Golub

Freddy Foks's Participant Observers: Anthropology, Colonial Development, and the Reinvention of Society in Britain (U California Press, 2023) is a novel new history of the role of social anthropology in British …

Policing, Incarceration, and Reform April 13, 2023

Skin Theory

Visual Culture and the Postwar Prison Laboratory

Cristina Mejia Visperas

Hosted by Laura Stark

An abolitionist approach to STS and the history of the life sciences: this is the model that Cristina Mejia Visperas offers in her book, Skin Theory: Visual Culture and the …