Covering infectious diseases through history from plague to COVID-19.
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Episode 127 - Infectious Diseases and Podcasting with Erin Welsh and Erin Allmann Updyke
1:10:14
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Erin Welsh and Erin Allmann Updyke, hosts of This Podcast Will Kill You, probably the first podcast on diseases - join Merle and Lee to reflect on podcasting and infectious diseases over the past several years. The conversation traces the beginnings of Erin and Erin’s podcast and the reason why they decided to launch it. Erin and Erin talk about ho…
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Episode 126 - South Asian Medicine with Anthony Cerulli
1:05:54
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Anthony Cerulli (University of Wisconsin - Madison) joins the podcast to discuss his work on medicine in South Asia, focusing on ayurvedic medicine in premodernity. After some basic background contextualizing south Asian medicine, Anthony provides an overview of the three foundational texts for it. The conversations touches upon subjects such as th…
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Episode 125 - Pandemic Politics during Covid-19 with Shana Gadarian
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Shana Gadarian (Syracuse University) joins the infectious historians to discuss her book on politics and their influence on behavior during Covid-19. The conversation begins with Shana’s decision to work on the behavior of Americans during Covid-19 early in the pandemic and she reflects on the process of writing the book as events were still unfold…
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Episode 124 - Emotions and Plague with Philippa Nicole Barr
1:14:06
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Philippa Nicole Barr (Australia National University) speaks to the Infectious Historians about her work on the public emotions surrounding the outbreak of the third plague pandemic in Australia. Philippa frames the discussion by providing some background about Australia at the turn of the 20th century and how plague reached Australia and led to the…
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Episode 123 - Plague and Astrology with Michelle Pfeffer
1:16:24
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Michelle Pfeffer (University of Oxford) comes on the podcast to present her work on astrology in the context of the second plague pandemic. The conversation begins with a brief discussion of the second plague pandemic and some of the cultural reactions to it. Michelle then speaks about public health and the question of its origins, before moving in…
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Episode 122 - Smallpox and Virgin Soil Epidemics with Jason Opal
1:07:48
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Jason Opal (McGill University) joins the Infectious Historians. Jason begins by discussing the massive impact of disease on the Americas between the 15th and 18th centuries, while also acknowledging the realization of this history in the 1970s. He also touches upon the concept of “virgin soil” epidemics. The second part of the episode focuses on in…
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Episode 121 - A Special Journal Issue on Pandemics with Neeraja Sankaran and Stephen Weldon
1:13:44
1:13:44
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Neeraja Sankaran (National Centre for Biological Sciences-TIFR) and Stephen Weldon (University of Oklahoma) join the Infectious Historians to discuss a recent special journal issue they edited. The issue includes many studies about histories of disease, pandemics and their impact around the world and across time, and reflections on how people have …
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Episode 120 - Genomic & genetic research and racialized communities with Arafaat Valiani
1:07:39
1:07:39
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Arafaat Valiani (University of Oregon) has a conversation with the Infectious Historians about genomic and genetic research with indigenous communities. Arafaat goes over what is genomic research, then describes how tests work and the bioethical debate surrounding them. He describes some of the different approaches among biomedical researchers that…
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Episode 119 - Yellow Fever and Climate with Keith Pluymers
1:13:49
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Keith Pluymers (Illinois State University) comes on the show to talk about his work on late 18th century Philadelphia in the context of yellow fever and climate. After the introductory remarks and the personal updates, Keith begins with a discussion of the Anthropocene and its broader relevance as well as its connection to his field of studies. He …
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Episode 118 - Diseased Cinema: Plagues, Pandemics, and Zombies in American Film with Robert Alpert
1:05:32
1:05:32
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Robert Alpert (Fordham University) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss the book they wrote together on disease in film. The conversation begins with a survey of the book and its argument. The three co-authors speak about the movies that are covered in the book, reflect upon the experience of co-writing a book (and its troubles) alongside eac…
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Episode 117 - The Prescription to Prison Pipeline with Michelle Smirnova
1:11:44
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Michelle Smirnova (University of Missouri-Kansas City) returns to the podcast to discuss her new book on drugs and prison in the United States, The Prescription to Prison Pipeline.The interview begins with a discussion of medicalization, and then generally follows the title of her book. The first part focuses on prescription drugs, touching also on…
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Episode 116 - Smallpox with Ana Duggan and Tim Newfield
1:02:58
1:02:58
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Ana Duggan (McMaster) and Tim Newfield (Georgetown) join the Infectious Historians to discuss smallpox. The conversation begins as always with a survey of what smallpox actually is as well as its broad history. After Ana and Tim share the reasons they chose to research smallpox, they move on to speak about recent research about historical smallpox,…
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Episode 115 - Medieval Music and Disease with Karen Cook
1:02:30
1:02:30
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Karen Cook (University of Hartford) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss some of her work on medieval music. Karen begins with an overview of medieval music - its purposes, context, instruments and the people who made it. She then moves on to speak about music related to epidemics - which is generally identified through its lyrics - with some…
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Episode 114 - The 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic from a translocal and comparative perspective with John Eicher
1:07:14
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John Eicher (Penn State Altoona) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss his project on the 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic that examines the pandemic from a translocal and comparative perspective. John begins by describing the broad contours of the pandemic and reflects upon the different approaches scholars have adopted in telling the story of th…
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Episode 113 - Famine in Lebanon during World War I with Tylor Brand
1:04:56
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Tylor Brand (Trinity College Dublin) comes on the podcast to talk about his recent book, Famine Worlds: Life at the Edge of Suffering in Lebanon’s Great War. After the standard opening and welcome, the discussion begins with a survey of the Ottoman Middle East in the early 20th century, which quickly moves to examine the case of Lebanon during Worl…
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Episode 112 - The Third Plague Pandemic in Java with Maurits Meerwijk
1:01:55
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Maurits Meerwijk (Leiden University) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss his book on the effects of the third plague pandemic in Java in the first half of the 20th century. The conversation begins with a survey of Java, its location and politics as under Dutch colonialism. Plague reached Java relatively late during the pandemic (1910/1), but…
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Episode 111 - Epidemic Orientalism with Alexandre White
1:02:54
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Alexandre White (Johns Hopkins University) joins Merle and Lee to discuss his recent book on Epidemic Orientalism. Alexandre begins by defining epidemic orientalism, focusing on why particular diseases - cholera, plague and yellow fever - (but not others) have been regulated. The conversation continues to examine the role of the West in placing the…
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Episode 110 - Late Antique Disasters with Kristina Sessa
1:15:02
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Kristina Sessa (Ohio State University) comes on the podcast to discuss her work on late antique historical disasters. After a brief overview of late antiquity and its importance in global history, Tina discusses her categorization of disasters and how it relates to broader disaster studies. The conversation zooms out to consider broader environment…
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Episode 109 - Interdisciplinary Studies of Disease before 1000 (a recent conference Merle and Lee attended)
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Merle and Lee discuss a recent conference on epidemics in the first millennium of the common era they both participated in at Georgetown University (in Washington DC). They begin with an overview of the conference itself - its topic and structure - as well as the people they met, include quite a few who were already guests on the show (and a few ot…
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Episode 108 - The Russian Flu with Tom Ewing
1:07:33
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Tom Ewing (Virginia Tech) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss his work on the Russian Flu, a late 19th century influenza pandemic that resonates with the early 20th century Spanish Flu. After setting the stage and touching upon the name of the pandemic as well as its reasoning and implications, the conversation moves to reflect upon the inte…
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Episode 107 - Jews and Plague in Early Modern Europe with Joshua Teplitsky
1:06:09
1:06:09
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Joshua Teplitsky (University of Pennsylvania) comes on the podcast to discuss his work on plague and its effects on Jewish communities in early modern Europe and particularly during the 18th century. Joshua offers an overview of some of the rich sources he uses for his research, including both the sources for mortality at the time and sources that …
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Episode 106 - Knowledge, Science and Health in the Early Modern Caribbean
1:01:52
1:01:52
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Pablo Gomez (University of Wisconsin, Madison) comes on the podcast to talk about knowledge, science and health in the early modern Caribbean. The conversation begins with the basics and how the region does not fall into the tropes of modernity, then focuses on Pablo’s interest in how people of African descent navigated the area and period. Pablo s…
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Episode 105 - Disease and Healing in Ancient Mesopotamia with Troels Arboll
1:10:07
1:10:07
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Troels Arboll (University of Copenhagen) joins the show to discuss his work on disease and healing in ancient Mesopotamia. Troels first defines ancient Mesopotamia both temporally and spatially and points out some of the sources we have for the period and their issues. The conversation soon reaches infectious diseases and how they were perceived an…
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Episode 104 - Disease, illness and religion in early modern French Canada with Mary Dunn
1:13:07
1:13:07
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Mary Dunn (St. Louis University) discusses her recent book on disease, illness and religion in French Canada over the 17th and 18th centuries. Mary begins with some background on Canada in the period, then moves to discuss some of the main sources from the period and their authors - the Jesuits. The main part of the interview examines some of the i…
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Episode 103 - The National Library of Medicine with Jeffrey Reznick
1:08:49
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Jeffrey Reznick (The National Library of Medicine) comes on the podcast to discuss his work as Chief of the History of Medicine Division at the National Library of Medicine and his research, particularly on the 1918 influenza pandemic. The conversation begins with a survey of the National Library of Medicine, and Jeffrey briefly outlines his normal…
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Elena Conis joins the Infectious Historians to discuss her recent book on the history of DDT and its use. The conversation begins with a brief overview of the early history of DDT up to and around its entry into mass production in the 1940s and 1950s. In parallel to the discussion of the commercial and industrial aspects of its use, Elena points ou…
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Episode 101 - HIV-AIDS in Kenya with Alex Otieno
1:09:17
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Alex Otieno (Arcadia University) joins Merle and Lee to discuss HIV-AIDS in Kenya. After a broad overview of the AIDS pandemic from the 1980s until today, including the issues of mortality and treatment, the conversation moves to Africa and Kenya. Alex discusses the early failure of Kenya to deal with the pandemic, and the rapid evolution of its re…
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Episode 100 - The Infectious Historians’ 100th Anniversary
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Merle and Lee reflect on the past 100 episodes of the podcast. They outline some of their plans for the podcast moving forward, share some of their own research projects, consider how Covid has affected academic life (and the podcast’s development), and discuss their respective disease courses this semester and how those relate to the podcast so fa…
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Episode 99 - Health and Illness in the Ancient World with Helen Rhee
1:00:59
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Helen Rhee (Westmont College) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss her work on illness, pain and healthcare in early Christianity. The conversation begins with an overview of medicine in Greco-Roman antiquity, and transitions from there to survey health and illness in the Hebrew Bible before moving on to early Christian times. The topics cove…
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Episode 98 - Anti-Vaccination movements with Paula Larsson
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Paula Larsson (University of Oxford) comes on the new Infectious Historians episode to talk about her work on anti-vaccination movements. The conversation begins with an overview of vaccines before moving into vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaccination. Paula explores the similarities in anti-vaccination movements and their arguments over the past two …
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Episode 97 - Empire and the Development of Medicine with Jim Downs
1:16:17
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Jim Downs (Gettysburg College) joins the Infectious Historians to talk about his recent book. The conversation begins with epidemiology and its origins, focusing on the 18th century military bureaucracy and the production of scientific knowledge in venues associated with slavery, prisons, the colonies and war. Jim follows the people who produced th…
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Episode 96 - Diseases and Urban Space with Sara Carr
1:13:11
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Sara Carr (Northeastern University) joins the Infectious Historians for a conversation about her work on redesigning urban space in response to a pandemic. The discussion begins with a survey of the major changes in urban landscapes in the US over the past two centuries. Sara presents the epidemics she covers - ranging from cholera to urban blight …
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Episode 95 - New Research on the Source of the Black Death with Maria Spyrou and Phil Slavin
1:11:40
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Maria Spyrou (University of Tübingen) and Phil Slavin (University of Stirling) join Merle and Lee to discuss their recent Nature publication on the source of the Black Death. After quickly covering the basics of paleogenetics and the history of the Black Death(!), the conversation moves on to the article itself and highlights its importance while a…
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Episode 94 - Epidemic Empire and Colonialism with Anjuli Raza Kolb
1:11:07
1:11:07
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Anjuli Raza Kolb (University of Toronto) joins Merle and Lee to discuss “Epidemic Empire”, her recent book on the history behind the metaphor of the “terrorism epidemic”. The conversation covers the development of the idea of insurgent violence as an epidemic in the nineteenth century, touching on imperialism and colonialism, particularly from a Br…
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Episode 93 - Pollen, infectious disease and the Black Death with Adam Izdebski
1:03:19
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Adam Izdebski (Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss his work at the frontier between pollen and disease, and in particular in light of his recent work analyzing pollen from the time of the Black Death. The conversation begins with an introduction to palynology (pollen analysis) and its li…
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Episode 92 - Tropical Disease & Medicine with Suman Seth
1:03:53
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Suman Seth [https://sts.cornell.edu/suman-seth] joins Merle and Lee to talk about his work on medicine in the British colonies during the 18th century and how it changed as people learned about tropical diseases. Suman begins by providing background on how medicine was practiced in Britain and in the colonies, alongside how new generations learned …
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Episode 91 - The Mexican Church and Disease in the 16th century with Jennifer Hughes
1:05:59
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Jennifer Hughes joins Merle and Lee to discuss her work on empire, society and church in 16th century Mexico. After Jennifer sets up the conversation with some background, the discussion focuses on the growth of the Catholic church in Mexico through the Spanish Empire against a backdrop of periodic epidemic disease, examining changes through both i…
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Episode 90 - Public Health Labs in History and during Covid with Claas Kirchhelle and Samantha Vanderslott
1:22:49
1:22:49
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Claas Kirchhelle (University College Dublin) and Samantha Vanderslott (Oxford University) talk to Merle and Lee about the development and history of public health laboratories and how they worked (or didn’t) during Covid. After first discussing what a public health lab is and how they work, they speak about when they were created in a few countries…
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Episode 89 - Infectious Historians’ 2nd Anniversary!
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32:34
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Merle and Lee meet in person at Princeton University, where they both attended the first in person conference for over two years. The short episode begins with some reflections on Covid and its effects now that things are slowly returning to their pre-Covid state. The conversation continues towards thinking about the podcast’s past year, and Merle …
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Episode 88 - Immigrants and Quarantine at Israel’s Founding with Rhona Seidelman
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58:13
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Rhona Seidelman (Oklahoma University) talks to Merle and Lee about how the newly founded state of Israel quarantined immigrants at Shaar Ha’aliya. After discussing background information on how large the center was and how many people passed through it, she speaks about the diseases people were treated for while there and the reactions of the peopl…
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Episode 87 - Pasteur’s Empire with Aro Velmet
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Aro Velmet (USC Dornsife) joins Merle and Lee to discuss his work on the Institut Pasteur in the context of colonial France in the late 19th century. The conversation begins with some background on colonial France and the French civilizing mission, then moves on to examine the foundation and operation of the Institut Pasteur, especially in the Fren…
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Episode 86 - The Antonine Plague with Colin Elliott
1:06:40
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Colin Elliot (Indiana University) talks to Merle and Lee about the late second century CE Antonine Plague and the complicated ways to assess its impact in antiquity. He begins by offering the textbook background to the pandemic before turning to discussing the sources we have for the pandemic along with the problems each type of source has. Colin t…
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Episode 85 - Racial Scripts and Pandemics with Keith Wailoo
1:10:20
1:10:20
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Keith Wailoo (Princeton University) talks to Merle and Lee about his work on racial scripts and the racialization of pandemics with a focus on Covid. He begins by discussing the idea of pandemics unfolding in dramatic acts and then explains the role of race in this story. Keith examines the deeper history of these racial scripts, along with the imp…
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Episode 84 - Memories and the Modern Uses of the Black Death with Ben Dodds
1:12:11
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Ben Dodds (Florida State University) speaks with Merle and Lee about his new book on memories, myths, and the modern uses of the Black Death over the past 200 years. He begins by discussing the emotional appeal of why people continue to study the Black Death, along with the increased focus on the pandemic since the outbreak of the Cholera Pandemics…
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Episode 83 - Using Historical Epidemiology during Covid with Kaspar Staub
1:05:53
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Kaspar Staub (University of Zurich) talks to Merle and Lee about his work in historical epidemiology and the ways in which it helps contextualize the ongoing Covid pandemic. After first offering background on the field and his education, Kaspar discusses one of his goals, which is to help public health officials and policy makers today understand t…
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Episode 82 - Animals and Disease with Rebecca Kaplan
1:07:26
1:07:26
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Rebecca Kaplan (Oklahoma State University) joins Merle and Lee to discuss some of her recent work on animals and disease. Rebecca first explains the different reasons why we should care about disease in animals - ranging from moral reasons to economic reasons such as the impact on humans and their livelihoods. Rebecca also touches upon some of the …
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Episode 81 - Archaeology, Pandemics, and Climate Change with Susanne Hakenbeck
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56:17
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Susanne Hakenbeck (University of Cambridge) joins Merle and Lee to discuss the key role of archaeology in histories of disease, pandemics, and climate change in the ancient and medieval worlds. After discussing the place of archaeology in understanding health and disease, Susanne talks about the pivotal role archaeologists have in contextualizing d…
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Episode 80 - Spatial Disease and Covid with Graham Mooney
1:01:38
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Graham Mooney (Johns Hopkins University) talks to Merle and Lee about the key roles of place and space in how we understand disease in the modern world. After defining these terms and offering a few examples of how to research them, Graham discusses the key role of disease surveillance and tof state coercion in imperial centers and their colonies. …
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Episode 79 - Healthcare and Immigrant Healthcare in the United States with Beatrix Hoffman
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Beatrix Hoffman (Northern Illinois University) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss the healthcare system in the United States. The conversation begins with an overview of the American healthcare system and its origins, then proceeds to cover governmental health programs, highlighting those who receive treatment (and in what form), and those …
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Episode 78 - Covid in Iowa with Emily Mendenhall
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Emily Mendenhall (Georgetown University) joins Merle and Lee to discuss Covid in her hometown in northwest Iowa. The conversation begins with a definition and reflection on the idea of syndemic, then gravitates towards Emily’s own experiences returning to her hometown of Okoboji during Covid. Emily uses the Okoboji case study to disentangle issues …
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