New Books Network
Medicine
Eastern European Studies January 20, 2021

Colonial Fantasies, Imperial Realities

Race Science and the Making of Polishness on the Fringes of the German Empire, 1840-1920

Lenny A. Ureña Valerio

Hosted by Steven Seegel
In Colonial Fantasies, Imperial Realities: Race Science and the Making of Polishness on the Fringes of the German Empire, 1840-1920 (Ohio University Press, 2019), Lenny Ureña Valerio offers a transnational approach to …

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Medicine January 19, 2021

Science Under Fire

Challenges to Scientific Authority in Modern America

Andrew Jewett

Hosted by Claire Clark
Americans today are often skeptical of scientific authority. Many conservatives dismiss climate change and Darwinism as liberal fictions, arguing that "tenured radicals" have coopted the sciences and other disciplines. Some …
Neuroscience January 19, 2021

Electric Brain

How the New Science of Brainwaves Reads Minds, Tells Us How We Learn, and Helps Us Change for the Better

R. Douglas Fields,

Hosted by John Griffiths
In Electric Brain: How the New Science of Brainwaves Reads Minds, Tells Us How We Learn, and Helps Us Change for the Better (BenBella, 2020), eminent neuroscientist R. Douglas Fields …
Dan Hill's EQ Spotlight January 14, 2021

Soul Full of Coal Dust

The True Story of an Epic Battle for Justice

Chris Hamby

Hosted by Dan Hill
Today I talked to Chris Hamby about his book Soul Full of Coal Dust: The True Story of an Epic Battle for Justice (Little Brown, 2020). Hamby looks into why there has …
Medicine January 12, 2021

Aging Behind Prison Walls: Studies in Trauma and Resilience

Tina Maschi and Keith Morgen

Hosted by Rachel Pagones
The demographics of U.S. prisons are changing, as are demographics outside of them: an increasing share of the population is growing old. The number of people aged 55 and older …
Asian Review of Books January 7, 2021

Confronting Covid-19: A Strategic Playbook for Leaders and Decision Makers

Devadas Krishnadas

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every country around the world in a manner not seen since the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, and is perhaps one of the most transformative …
Medicine January 6, 2021

The Structure of Moral Revolutions

Studies of Changes in the Morality of Abortion, Death, and the Bioethics Revolution

Robert Baker

Hosted by Claire Clark
We live in an age of moral revolutions in which the once morally outrageous has become morally acceptable, and the formerly acceptable is now regarded as reprehensible. Attitudes toward same-sex …
Science, Technology, and Society January 5, 2021

The Empire of Depression

A New History

Jonathan Sadowsky

Hosted by Chad Valasek
When is sorrow sickness? That is the question that this book asks, exploring how our understandings of sadness, melancholy, depression, mania and anxiety have changed over time, and how societies …
Medicine December 29, 2020

Pure America

Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia

Elizabeth Catte

Hosted by Claire Clark
Between 1927 and 1979, more than 8,000 people were involuntarily sterilized in five hospitals across the state of Virginia. From this plain and terrible fact springs Elizabeth Catte's Pure America …
Science, Technology, and Society December 23, 2020

The Mutant Project

Inside the Global Race to Genetically Modify Humans

Eben Kirksey

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
In The Mutant Project: Inside the Global Race to Genetically Modify Humans (St. Martin's Press, 2020), anthropologist Eben Kirksey visits the frontiers of genetics, medicine, and technology to ask: Whose values …
Religion December 22, 2020

Religion and Medicine

A History of the Encounter Between Humanity's Two Greatest Institutions

Jeff Levin

Hosted by Lindsey Jackson
Though the current political climate might lead one to suspect that religion and medicine make for uncomfortable bedfellows, the two institutions have a long history of alliance. From religious healers …
Medicine December 18, 2020

Common Phantoms

An American History of Psychic Science

Alicia Puglionesi

Hosted by Claire Clark
Séances, clairvoyance, and telepathy captivated public imagination in the United States from the 1850s well into the twentieth century. Though skeptics dismissed these experiences as delusions, a new kind of …
SSEAC Stories December 17, 2020

COVID-19 and Migrant Workers in Southeast Asia

A Discussion with Emeritus Professor Philip Hirsch

Philip Hirsch

Hosted by Natali Pearson
COVID-19 has had such far-reaching impacts that it can be, and has been, studied from the perspective of almost any academic discipline. For geographers, the ways in which COVID-19 affects …
Medicine December 17, 2020

Unraveling

Remaking Personhood in a Neurodiverse Age

Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer

Hosted by Claire Clark
Twentieth-century neuroscience fixed the brain as the basis of consciousness, the self, identity, individuality, even life itself, obscuring the fundamental relationships between bodies and the worlds that they inhabit. In Unraveling …
Medicine December 11, 2020

Co-Conspirator for Justice

The Revolutionary Life of Dr. Alan Berkman

Susan M. Reverby

Hosted by Rachel Pagones
Alan Berkman (1945–2009) was no campus radical in the mid-1960s; he was a promising Ivy League student, football player, Eagle Scout, and fraternity president. But when he was a medical …
Science, Technology, and Society December 9, 2020

What It Means to Be Human

The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics

O. Carter Snead

Hosted by Hope J. Leman
At first glance, the term “expressive individualism” seems benign enough. After all, people throughout the Western world value their personal freedom and the liberty to make crucial life decisions such …
Medicine December 8, 2020

Divided Bodies

Lyme Disease, Contested Illness, and Evidence-Based Medicine

Abigail A. Dumes

Hosted by Claire Clark
While many doctors claim that Lyme disease--a tick-borne bacterial infection--is easily diagnosed and treated, other doctors and the patients they care for argue that it can persist beyond standard antibiotic …
Science December 4, 2020

Brain Fables

The Hidden History of Neurodegenerative Diseases and a Blueprint to Conquer Them

Alberto Espay and Benjamin Stecher

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
An estimated 80 million people live with a neurodegenerative disease, with this number expected to double by 2050. Despite decades of research and billions in funding, there are no medications …
SSEAC Stories December 3, 2020

Transforming Breast Cancer Diagnosis in Vietnam

A Discussion with Professor Patrick Brennan

Patrick Brennan

Hosted by Natali Pearson
Globally, breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women, with over 1 million cases detected annually. The disease is particularly worrisome in Vietnam, where breast cancer incidence has …
Medicine December 3, 2020

OD

Naloxone and the Politics of Overdose

Nancy D. Campbell

Hosted by Laura Stark
Reducing harm or shrinking the likelihood of accidental death are remarkably contentions projects—in areas from sex education, to pandemic management, to drug use. Nancy Campbell’s important new book, OD: Naloxone …