Public Health

Public Health

episodes

Interviews with scholars of public health about their new books

Geraldine Fela, "Critical Care: Nurses on the Frontline of Australia's AIDS Crisis" (UNSW Press, 2024)

June 3, 2026

Critical Care

Geraldine Fela
Hosted by Hannah Forsyth

The claim that real change is enabled by grassroots, community-based movements might seem a distant ideal, but Dr Geraldine Fela shows such assertions…

Lauren Duval, "The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence" (Omohundro Institute and UNC Press, 2025)

June 3, 2026

The Home Front

Lauren Duval
Hosted by Leah Cargin

Prior to the American Revolution, the urban centers of colonial North America had little direct experience of war. With the outbreak of violence, Brit…

Pedro Domingos, "The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World" (Basic Books, 2018)

May 30, 2026

The Master Algorithm

Pedro Domingos
Hosted by Gregory McNiff

In the world's top research labs and universities, the race is on to invent the ultimate learning algorithm: one capable of discovering any knowledge …

Christos Lynteris, "How Plague Got Rats: Mastering a Zoonotic Pandemic" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)

May 30, 2026

How Plague Got Rats

Christos Lynteris
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Today, rats are nearly synonymous with plague, but this association is surprisingly recent. For centuries, plague devastated populations without b…

Paige Towers, "What They Stole: A Familicide Rooted in Intercountry Adoption" (U Iowa Press, 2026)

May 28, 2026

What They Stole

Paige Towers
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In 1955, following the devastation of the Korean War, Bertha and Harry Holt made headlines for adopting eight Korean children. Driven by evangelical c…

Hannah Shepherd, "The Narrowing Sea: Fukuoka, Pusan, and the Rise and Fall of an Imperial Region" (U California Press, 2025)

May 27, 2026

The Narrowing Sea

Hannah Shepherd
Hosted by Samee Siddiqui

In The Narrowing Sea: Fukuoka, Pusan, and the Rise and Fall of an Imperial Region (U California Press, 2025), Hannah Shepherd examines the shared hist…

What AI Means for Fiction: A Discussion with Literary Critic Mark McGurl

May 26, 2026

What AI Means for Fiction

Mark McGurl
Hosted by Paul Starobin

How is the tool of Artificial Intelligence shaping the writing of fiction? Is AI emerging as more than just a potentially handy aid to an author—and, …

Yosef Grodzinsky, "How Deeply Human Is Language?: Chomsky, the Brain, and the AI Fantasy" (MIT Press, 2026)

May 24, 2026

How Deeply Human Is Language?

Yosef Grodzinsky
Hosted by Mariam Olugbodi

How Deeply Human Is Language? Chomsky, the Brain, and the AI Fantasy (MIT Press, 2026) is Yosef Grodzinsky’s exploration of the criticality of the lin…

Matthew L. Reznicek, "Tales of Health: Illness, Disability, and Citizenship in the Romantic National Tale" (Liverpool UP, 2026)

May 21, 2026

Tales of Health

Matthew L. Reznicek
Hosted by Victoria Lupascu

Tales of Health: Illness, Disability, and Citizenship in the Romantic National Tale (Liverpool UP, 2026) is about the way the Romantic National Tale …

Gregg A. Brazinsky, "Cold War Comrades: An Emotional History of the Sino-North Korean Alliance" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

May 16, 2026

Cold War Comrades

Gregg A. Brazinsky
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In this major new interpretation of Sino-North Korean relations, Dr. Gregg A. Brazinsky argues that neither the PRC nor the DPRK would have survived a…

Fyodor Tertitskiy, "Pyongyang on the Brink: Sixteen Crises That Shaped North Korea" (Hurst, 2026)

May 14, 2026

Pyongyang on the Brink

Fyodor Tertitskiy
Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

North Korea has survived wars, sanctions, and isolation—to the point where it now seems that the continuation of the Kim dynasty, and a starkly divide…

Kira Ganga Kieffer, "Unvaccinated Under God: Religion and Vaccine Hesitancy in Modern America" (Princeton UP, 2026)

May 13, 2026

Unvaccinated Under God

Kira Ganga Kieffer
Hosted by Gregory Soden

Kira Ganga Kieffer is a scholar of American religions, history, culture, and politics with a PhD in Religious Studies from Boston University. She is…

Benjamin Robert Siegel, "Markets of Pain: Opium, Capitalism, and the Global History of Painkillers" (Oxford UP, 2026)

May 12, 2026

Markets of Pain

Benjamin Robert Siegel
Hosted by Tom Sojka

Markets of Pain offers a sweeping history of the business of licit opium--following cultivators, merchants, scientists, and policymakers--and shows ho…

Peter S. Soppelsa, "Paris After Haussmann: Living with Infrastructure in the City of Light, 1870–1914" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2026)

May 10, 2026

Paris After Haussmann

Peter S. Soppelsa
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Modern Paris is often hailed as a capital of urban infrastructure. Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s rebuilding of Paris in 1853–1870, branded “Haussma…

Odd Arne Westad, "The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History" (Henry Holt and Co, 2026)

May 6, 2026

The Coming Storm

Odd Arne Westad
Hosted by Charles Coutinho

From a renowned Yale historian comes a chilling look at the looming threat of the next Great Power war and the urgent interventions necessary to avoid…

Katie Batza, "AIDS in the Heartland: How Unlikely Coalitions Created a Blueprint for LGBTQ Politics" (UNC Press, 2025)

May 2, 2026

AIDS in the Heartland

Katie Batza
Hosted by Donna Anderson

This episode features a conversation with Dr. Katie Batza on their recently published book, AIDS in the Heartland: How Unlikely Coalitions Created a B…

David Krolikoski, "Lyrical Translation: The Creation of Modern Poetry in Colonial Korea" (U Hawai'i Press, 2026)

May 2, 2026

Lyrical Translation

David Krolikoski
Hosted by Leslie Hickman

Lyrical Translation: The Creation of Modern Poetry in Colonial Korea (U Hawai'i Press, 2026)is a literary history of modern Korean poetry's origins an…

Miranda Yaver, "Coverage Denied: How Health Insurers Drive Inequality in the United States" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

April 30, 2026

Coverage Denied

Miranda Yaver
Hosted by Lilly Goren

Miranda Yaver’s new book, Coverage Denied: How Health Insurers Drive Inequality in the United States (Cambridge UP, 2026), has lots of examples and in…

Empathy Takes Action: An Autistic Therapist on the Radical Work of Connection

April 30, 2026

Empathy Takes Action

Aimee Cliff

Mainstream psychology has long accepted that some people (like those with autism) are naturally more logical and unemotional, while others (like so-ca…

Samira K. Mehta, "God Bless the Pill: The Surprising History of Contraception and Sexuality in American Religion" (UNC Press, 2026)

April 30, 2026

God Bless the Pill

Samira K. Mehta
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Most people today understand contraception as central to women’s liberation, and when the birth control pill arrived in 1960, the media thought it wou…