COVIDCalls

EP #344 - 09.23.2021 - Anthropause w/Yiyun Kang

Today I talk with artist Yiyun Kang about her project Anthropause, and her process of making and showing art in the middle of the pandemic.

Yiyun Kang received her BFA in painting from Seoul National University, MFA from UCLA’s Design & Media Arts, and PhD from Royal College of Art, UK. She held exhibitions at numerous art institutions including the Seoul Museum of Art, Taipei MOCA, Victoria and Albert Museum, and participated in international events such as Venice Architecture Biennale, Shenzhen Biennale, and Gwangju Design Biennale. In 2020, she participated in the transcontinental contemporary art project CONNECT, BTS as the only Korean artist; in 2017, she received the Red Dot Award with Deep Surface, a commissioned exhibition by Max Mara. Recently Kang had solo exhibition ‘Anthropause’ at PKM gallery, Seoul.

Currently a visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art (London), Kang also gives lectures at Politecnico di Milano (Milano, Italy), SOAS University of London (London, UK), and Sotheby’s Institute of Art (London, UK). Kang is featured in Bloomberg’s ‘Art+Technology’ series and her writings have been published in the Leonardo Journal (MIT Press) and Practices of Projections, published by Oxford University Press. Kang is a fellow of the RSA (Royal Society of Arts, UK) since 2019.

EP #343 - 09.16.2021 - Young and Severely Affected by COVID

EP #342 - 09.15.2021 - Crisis: A Term for These Times w/Rosalind Williams

Today I welcome Rosalind Williams to the program to discuss her latest article Crisis: The Emergence of Another Hazardous Concept.

Rosalind Williams taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1982 to her retirement in 2018. In 2001 she joined MIT’s Program in Science, Technology, and Society, serving as program head from 2002-06. Her main scholarly affiliation is the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT), of which she served as president in 2005-06, and from which she received its highest award, the Leonardo da Vinci Prize, in 2013. 

Her first three books (Dream Worlds, Notes from the Underground, Retooling) address this question: what are the implications for human life, both individual and collective, when we live in a predominantly self-constructed world?  In responding to it, she has studied the emergence of consumer culture in late l9th century France; in the creation of underworlds, both imagined and actual, as models of a technological environment; and the retooling of MIT as the Institute confronts the effects of an information age of which it has been a prime generator.  

Her most recent book, The Triumph of Human Empire (University of Chicago Press, 2013) examines the works and lives of three well-known writers (Jules Verne, William Morris, and Robert Louis Stevenson) to illuminate the event of consciousness at the end of the l9th century, when humans realized that they were close to mapping the entire globe and that the global frontier was closing.

EP #341 - 09.14.2021 - COVID Memorials w/Guest Host Kristin Urquiza

EP #340 - 09.13.2021 - The Anthro-Shift: Climate, Risk, and COVID-19

Today I welcome sociologist of risk and the environment Dana Fisher.

Dana R. Fisher is a Professor in the Sociology Department at the University of Maryland. Her research focuses on questions related to democracy, activism, and climate politics.  Recent projects include a study of responses to climate change by political elites in the US, the emergence of the Civilian Climate Corps, and activism and protest around a range of issues.  Professor Fisher has authored over sixty-five research papers and book chapters and has written six books.  Her most recent book is American Resistance (Columbia University Press 2019). She currently serves as a Contributing Author for Working Group 3 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Sixth Assessment Review (IPCC AR6) writing about citizen engagement and civic activism.. She is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Governance Studies program at The Brookings Institution.

EP #339 - 09.13.2021 - Doctors with Disabilities in the Fight against COVID

Today I welcome Peter Poullos to discuss doctors with disabilities in COVID times.

Dr. Peter Poullos is Clinical Associate Professor of Radiology and Gastroenterology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. In 2003, as a G.I. fellow at UC San Francisco, he suffered a spinal cord injury and subsequently re-trained in radiology.  His specialty is body imaging, focusing on CT, MRI, and ultrasound of gastrointestinal diseases.  He is the Founder and Cochair of the Stanford Medicine Abilities Coalition. He is a member of the School of Medicine Faculty Senate and the Stanford Medicine Diversity Cabinet.  His work focuses on advocacy, education, and health equity for those with disabilities. He is the cohost of the Docs With Disabilities Podcast.

EP #338 - 09.09.2021 - Classroom Teachers in the Pandemic

Today I welcome teachers Rebecca Martinson and Angela Minor back to COVIDCalls to talk about COVID and the return to school. 

Rebecca Martinson is a nurse teaching intro to nursing and Anateomy and Physiology to high school students for 10 years-  it is her 11th year teaching. She wrote an oped for the New York Times last summer critical of the planning going into covid safety related to schools. During the past year in addition to teaching she has volunteered at several mass vaccination clinics as a draw nurse and vaccinator. Her area is seeing its largest surge ever in Covid19 cases and hospitalizations however under her governors order she is returning full time in person to the classroom on September 1. 

Mrs. Angela Minor has been teaching high school students since 1995. She currently teaches AP Government, Current World Issues and issues and Advocacy: Class, Race and Gender in America in lower Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She also teaches graduate classes through The Regional Training Center which partners with LaSalle University and the College of New Jersey. 

EP #337 - 09.09.2021 - Disaster Memory in East Asia

Today I talk with historians Alex Jania and Kristina Buhrman about COVID and disaster memory in East Asia.

Kristina Buhrman is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Religion at Florida State University. Her research focuses on the history of knowledge in and about premodern Japan, covering topics from divination and astrology to disasters. She has been a member of the Teach 3.11 collective since 2011, and is currently an editor for the site.

Alex Jania is a PhD Candidate in the Department of History at University of Chicago focusing on Modern Japan. He is currently writing a dissertation on post-disaster memorialization in 20th and 21st century Japan and its place in global memory culture. Alex’s scholarship is part of a larger commitment to share the stories of Japanese disaster survivors for English speaking audiences. In particular, he has been involved in public history efforts like Humans of Minamisanriku and the Osaka Committee of Chicago Sister Cities International’s Kizuna Project, which both focus on the stories of 3/11 survivors in the Tōhoku region.

EP #336 - 09.08.2021 - Humanitarian Aid in the COVID-19 Era w/Peter Redfield

Today I talk with anthropologist Peter Redfield, author of Life in Crisis, the Ethical Journey of Doctors Without Borders.

Peter Redfield is Professor of Anthropology and Erburu Chair in Ethics, Globalization and Development at the University of Southern California.  Trained as a cultural anthropologist sympathetic to history, he concentrates on circulations of science, technology and medicine in colonial and postcolonial contexts. The author of Life in Crisis: The Ethical Journey of Doctors Without Borders (University of California Press 2013) and Space in the Tropics: From Convicts to Rockets in French Guiana (University of California Press 2000), he is also coeditor of Forces of Compassion:  Humanitarianism between Ethics and Politics (SAR Press 2011), and an issue of the journal Limn (2018) on the theme of “Little Development Devices and Humanitarian Goods.”  He has held fellowships at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, in addition to serving as President of the Society for Cultural Anthropology.   

EP #335 - 09.07.2021 - Special Guest Host Episode with Kristen Urquiza

Welcome to episode 335 of COVIDCalls, a daily discussion of the COVID-19 pandemic with a diverse collection of disaster experts. My name is Kristin Urquiza, and I’m guest hosting for the day. I am the co-founder and co-executive director of Marked By COVID, which is a national, grassroots-powered, non-partisan nonprofit organization that promotes accountability, recognition, justice, and a pandemic-free future by elevating truth and science. It was founded just days after my first-generation Mexican-American father, Mark, passed away from the virus.  I am coming to you live from San Francisco, California.

Today I will talk with Trevor Nelson and Tara Krebbs. Both are  parents and activists in Arizona, the state I grew up in, and where my father passed away last June.

Trevor Nelson is a parent of 4 school aged children, former science teacher, and community organizer with Right2SafeSchoolsAZ.org.

Tara Krebbs is the COVID Justice Leader for the Marked By COVID Arizona chapter. She joined the group after losing her Dad, Charles Henry Krebbs of Phoenix, Ariz died of COVID-19 last summer. She is a parent of a high school senior, Scotty.