COVIDCalls

EP #411 - 2.10.2022 - When the Dust Settles w/Lucy Easthope

Today I welcome Lucy Easthope, Professor in Practice of Risk and Hazard at the University of Durham UK and author of the forthcoming book: When The Dust Settles: Stories of Love, Loss, and Hope from an Expert in Disaster.

Professor Lucy Easthope is a leading authority on recovering from disaster. For over two decades she has challenged others to think differently about what comes next, after tragic events. She is a passionate and thought-provoking voice in an area that few know about: emergency planning. However in the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, her work has become decidedly more mainstream. She has particular interest in the support of children and young people after disaster.

She advised government departments, corporations, emergency and health services and charities during the pandemic. Her book ‘When The Dust Settles’ is published in March 2022. She is known globally for her work and holds research positions in the UK and New Zealand. She is a Professor in Practice of Risk and Hazard at the University of Durham where she Co-Founded the After Disaster Network and is a Fellow in Mass Fatalities and Pandemics at the Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath.  

EP #410 - 2.8.2022 - The Viral Modernism and the 1918 Influenza w/Elizabeth Outka

Today I welcome Elizabeth Outka, author of Viral Modernism: The Influenza Pandemic and Interwar Literature.

Elizabeth Outka is Professor of English at the University of Richmond. Her latest book, Viral Modernism: The Influenza Pandemic and Interwar Literature (Columbia University Press 2020), investigates how one of the deadliest plagues in history—the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic—silently reshaped the modernist era, infusing everything from T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, to the emergence of viral zombies, to the popularity of séances. She is the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

She has written on topics ranging from consumer culture, to postcolonial representations of trauma, to disability studies. Her first book was Consuming Traditions: Modernity, Modernism, and the Commodified Authentic (Oxford University Press 2009; 2012). Her essays have appeared in Modernism/modernity, NOVEL, Contemporary Literature, The Paris Review Daily and many edited collections.

EP #409 - 2.7.2022 - Life-Making and Death-Making: Capitalism and COVID

Today I welcome Marxist feminist scholar Sue Ferguson, author of the essay Life-Making or Death-Making.

Susan Ferguson is Associate Professor Emerita at Wilfrid Laurier in Canada. Prior to joining the academy, she worked as a journalist for Maclean's, Canada's national news magazine. Ferguson is a Marxist-Feminist scholar and activist, who has been reading, writing and thinking about social reproduction theory for many years. Her published work includes articles on feminist theory, childhood and capitalism, and Canadian political discourse. Her book, Women and Work: Social Reproduction, Feminism and Labour was published in 2020 by Pluto Press. Ferguson is also a member of Faculty4Palestine and on the editorial board of Midnight Sun. She is currently living in Houston, Texas.

EP #408 - 2.3.2022 - The Evidence on Face Masks and COVID-19

Today I welcome economist Jason Abaluck to discuss his research on mask wearing and COVID-19.

Jason Abaluck is a professor of economics in the Yale University school of management. His work lies at the intersection of public finance, behavioral economics, health economics and industrial organization. His research focuses on the detection of mistakes and the design of institutions when consumers or providers make mistakes in contexts such as health plan choice, dietary choice, or the provision of medical care.

EP #407 - 2.2.2022 - COVID Minimizers and Anti-Vaxxers w/Tara Haelle

Today I welcome public health and science journalist Tara Haelle back to COVIDCalls.

Tara Haelle is a freelance science journalist and photojournalist who serves as the AHCJ Core Topic Leader for Medical Studies. She particularly specializes in reporting on vaccines, pediatrics, maternal health, obesity, nutrition, mental health and medical research in general, and she regularly speaks on vaccine hesitancy. Her work has appeared in Elemental, Scientific American, New York Times, Forbes, Politico, Slate, NOVA, Wired and Science, and she writes and covers medical conferences regularly for Medscape and MDEdge.

EP #406 - 2.2.2022 - The Pandemic-Endemic Debate and COVID

Today I welcome Monica Green, Eleanor Murray, Cecilia Tomori to discuss pandemic and endemic disease—and where COVID is headed in that discussion. And Jacob Steere-Williams is joins me as guest host today! 

Monica H. Green is a historian of medicine, currently serving as Suppes Visiting Professor of the History of Science at Stanford University. She specializes in the premodern period and global infectious diseases. She is writing a book on the Black Death that draws on evidence from genetics, archaeology, and historical sources to document the early origin and broad geographic extent of the 2nd Plague Pandemic.

Cecília Tomori is Associate Professor and Director of Global Public Health and Community Health at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. She is an anthropologist and public health scholar who studies breastfeeding and reproduction, health inequities, and how corporate interests shape health and policy.

Eleanor Murray is an assistant professor at Boston University School of Public Health who focuses on improving methods for evidence-based decision-making and human-data interaction. Her work primarily focuses on applications to public health and clinical epidemiology, including applications to HIV, HPV, cancer, cardiovascular disease, psychiatric disorders, musculoskeletal disorders, social and environmental epidemiology, and maternal and adolescent health. Dr. Murray also conducts meta-research evaluating bias in existing research. During the COVID pandemic, Dr. Murray has been working on improving science communication about epidemiology and public health concepts, and identifying and addressing barriers to equitable vaccination distribution and acceptance.

EP #405 - 2.1.2022 - Pandemic Surveillance and Homophobia in South Korea

Today I welcome anthropologist Timothy Gitzen, co-author of the article “Pandemic Surveillance and Homophobia in South Korea.”

Timothy Gitzen is a sociocultural anthropologist and postdoctoral fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at The University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on the intersections of security, surveillance, queer politics, and science and technology. His work has been published in positions, Transgender Studies Quarterly, Cultural Studies, and is forthcoming in Current Anthropology.

EP #404 - 1.31.2022 - Return Visit w/Chavi Karkowsky Author of High Risk: Stories of Pregnancy, Birth, and the Unexpected

Today I welcome Dr. Chavi Eve Karkowsky back to COVIDCalls —she is the author of High Risk: Stories of Pregnancy, Birth, and the Unexpected (2020).

Dr. Chavi Eve Karkowsky attended medical school at Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine in New York City. She then finished internship and residency in obstetrics and gynecology at the integrated program at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, followed by a fellowship in Maternal-Fetal Medicine (MFM).  Dr. Karkowsky continues to work as a high risk obstetrics specialist in New York City, where she leads initiatives in outpatient care. She also writes for the public, with publications in Slate, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and elsewhere; her first book, "High Risk: Stories of Pregnancy, Birth, and the Unexpected" (Norton/Liveright 2020) was published in 2020.

EP #403 - 01.25.2022 - Public Health, Human Rights, and COVID

Today I speak with social epidemiologist Justin Feldman.

Justin Feldman is a social epidemiologist and a Health and Human Rights Fellow at the Harvard FXB Center for Health & Human Rights. His research looks how racism and economic inequality influence population health. This work has addressed multiple domains including police violence, residential segregation, and the toll of the COVID-19 pandemic.

EP #243 - 03/22/2022 - Decolonizing COVID: Pandemics and Global History w/Helen Tilley

Today is a discussion of decolonizing global health and the history of medicine with historian Helen Tilley.

Helen Tilley is a professor of History at Northwestern University.  Her book, Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development, and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge (Chicago, 2011) explores the dynamic interplay between scientific research and imperialism in British Africa between 1870 and 1950. It received the Ludwik Fleck Prize from the Society for the Social Studies of Science (2014). She has also written articles and book chapters on the history of ecology, eugenics, agriculture, and epidemiology in tropical Africa, and is co-editor with Robert Gordon of Ordering Africa: Anthropology, European Imperialism and the Politics of Knowledge (Manchester, 2007) and with Michael Gordin and Gyan Prakash of Utopia-Dystopia: Historical Conditions of Possibility (Princeton, 2010).

Her current project focuses on the history of African decolonization, global governance, and the ethnoscientific projects that accompanied state building in the colonial and Cold War era. At Northwestern, she directs Science in Human Culture and holds a Faculty Fellowship with the Buffett Institute for Global Studies. She is also affiliated with the programs in African Studies, Global Health, Legal Studies, and Environmental Policy and Culture.