COVIDCalls

EP #473 - 3.15.2022 - Restoring Memory: Premonitions and Origins

For The Conversation TODAY I have three experts—return guests to COVIDCalls—to talk about Premonitions and Origins of COVID-19.

Monica H. Green is a historian of medicine, currently serving as SOO-PEES 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.

Christos Lynteris is Professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of St Andrews. His research focuses on the anthropological and historical examination of epidemics, zoonosis, epidemiological epistemology, medical visual culture, colonial medicine, and pandemics as events posing an existential risk to humanity.

Jacob Steere-Williams is a historian of epidemic disease at the Colle of Charleston specializing in nineteenth and early-twentieth century Britain and the former British colonies. He is a frequent guest host and contributor to COVIDCalls.

EP #470 - 3.14.2022 - Pandemic Films

Today I welcome Comparative Literature and Film Studies scholar Alain Cohen to talk about the film Contagion.

Alain J.-J. Cohen is Professor of Comparative Literature and Film Studies at the University of California, San Diego where he has spent his career. He is also a practicing psychoanalyst, member of the San Diego Psychoanalytic Center, the American Psychoanalytic Association and the International Psychoanalytic Association. He has single-authored about 100 articles about auteur-filmmakers, text semiotics, or art history, in various journals and book chapters, and presented about 300 papers, nationally and internationally. In his research, teaching and talks, his analysis focuses at the granular interweave of technical prowess and psychological motivation.

EP #469 - 3.14.2022 - The History of Technology and COVID w/Asif Siddiqi

Today I welcome historian of science and technology Asif Siddiqi.

Asif Siddiqi is a professor of history at Fordham University in New York. He writes and teaches on both the history of technology and modern Russian history, as well as the intersection of the two. He has written many books and articles on the history of space exploration, including the Red Rockets’ Glare: Spaceflight and the Soviet Imagination, 1857-1957 (Cambridge University Press, 2010). More recently, his work has focused on global histories of infrastructure and technology focusing particularly on Africa and South Asia. He is currently working on a book under contract with MIT Press provisionally titled Departure Gates: Postcolonial Histories of Space on Earth. This year he is on leave at Princeton University’s Davis Center for Historical Studies.

EP #468 - 3.13.2022 - Mothers and Grandmothers in the Pandemic

Today I welcome my stepmother Harriet Knowles and my mother in law Susan Meurling to talk about their lives during the pandemic.

Harriet Knowles is a native Texan, having been born and raised out in West Texas in the town of Midland. She had an unique experience in her high school education in that her father was her school principal. Harriet attended Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas and continued her education at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Dallas to obtain her Physical Therapy degree. She also earned a Master’s in Behavior Science from University of Texas Permian when she worked as a pediatric physical therapist  back in Midland.

Harriet was in the workforce in Physical Therapy pediatric-related jobs and worked for the Austin Independent School District as a Physical Therapist for her last 19 years before retirement.

Harriet lives in Georgetown in the Sun City community with Steve and enjoys her  time by loving on her grandchildren (7 so far!), traveling, and reading.  She is also taking care of her mother who lives with them there.

Susan Meurling is a retired technology educator. She graduated from Tufts University (English major), grad Manhattanville (Ed psych) and Teachers College Columbia (communications, computing, and technology). Taught in Ovid, NY, Scarsdale NY, and Houston (Spring Branch) TX. After tech moved into education, she taught the basics of computer literacy and emerging technologies to kids in elementary and middle school. Supported teachers and administrators in integrating tech into their lives and careers. After retirement, babysat for first grandchild, then helped a Section 8 housing unit set up and use their computer room. Also volunteered at a senior day center in Boston before the pandemic. Since 2013, volunteered on the board and executive committee of a Cambridge non-profit choral organization. Proud parent of two successful professional women, and grateful grandparent of four amazing grandchildren ages 8 to 13.

EP #467 - 3.13.2022 - Brothers and Sisters in the Pandemic Part II

Today I welcome my brothers and sisters back to COVIDCalls. My sisters and brothers: Lindy Warner, Stephanie Eddleton, Jennifer Lerma, Jeff Knowles, and David Vieira. 

EP #466 - 3.12.2022 - COVID and Humanitarian Aid w/Julia Irwin

Today I welcome historian of the Red Cross and humanitarian disaster relief Julia Irwin.  

Julia Irwin is Associate Professor and Associate Chair in the department of history at the University of South Florida.  Her research focuses on the place of humanitarianism and foreign assistance in 20th century U.S. foreign relations and international history. Her first book, Making the World Safe: The American Red Cross and a Nation’s Humanitarian Awakening, was published in 2013 by Oxford University Press. A history of U.S. relief efforts for foreign civilians in the era of the First World War, her book analyzes both the diplomatic and the cultural significance of humanitarian aid in these years.  Currently, she is writing Catastrophic Diplomacy: A History of U.S. Responses to Global Natural Disaster.

EP #465 - 3.11.2022 - The Architecture of COVID

Today I welcome Daniel Barber, Jeannette KWO Kuo, and Paul Lewis to discuss architecture and design in the COVID era.

Daniel A. Barber is Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design, where he is also Chair of the interdisciplinary PhD Program in Architecture. His most recent book is Modern Architecture and Climate: Design before Air Conditioning (Princeton UP, 2020). Daniel edits the accumulation series on e-flux architecture and is co-founder of the Current: Collective on Environment and Architectural History. For 2021-2022 he is a Senior Fellow at the Käte Hamburger Centre for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies at Universität Heidelberg.

Jeannette Kuo is partner at Karamuk Kuo Architects based in Zurich and Professor of Architecture and Construction at TU Munich. Previously she was Assistant Professor in Practice at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and Visiting Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Her work and her research focus on integrated design, looking at architectural space, technology and culture to address a more sustainable future. The work of the office ranges from collective housing to institutional projects for public clients and include the International Sports Sciences Institute in Lausanne, a low-tech sustainable office building; the Archaeological Center at Augusta Raurica; and the extension to the Rice University School of Architecture in Houston.

Paul Lewis, FAIA, is a Principal at LTL Architects based in New York City.  He is a Professor at Princeton University School of Architecture, where he has taught since 2000.  Paul is the President of the Architectural League of New York and a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome.  His New York based firm has completed academic, cultural and institutional projects throughout the United States.  LTL are the 2019 NY State AIA firm of the year and have received a National Design Award, have been inducted into the ID Hall of Fame, and have received multiple AIA design awards.  The firm’s recent work includes Poster House, The Helen R. Walton Children’s Enrichment Center, and a new residence hall at Carnegie Mellon University.  LTL Architects are the authors of Manual of PhysicalDistancing (2020), Intensities (2013), Opportunistic Architecture (2008) and Situation Normal....Pamphlet Architecture #21 (1998). Their 2016 book entitled Manual of Section has been translated into six languages, and LTL is currently completing a book about plant-based materials used in the sections of house construction.

EP #464 - 3.10.2022 - Disasters in Tonga

Today I welcome Pacific Island journalist and scholar Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson to talk about the winter 2022 Tonga volcanic eruption and tsunami and COVID.

Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson is a leading climate change journalist and scholar with a focus on small islands, gender, environmental negotiations and human rights. Lagipoiva Cherelle brings deep experience in Pacific Islands journalism and media startups as the founder and editor of the Pacific Environment Weekly, the first environment news website and syndicate in the Pacific Islands. She also has extensive experience reporting for international newsmedia as a writer for Guardian Australia and a contributor to Al Jazeera, the New Zealand Herald and Agence France Presse.

EP #463 - 3.10.2022 - COVID, Disinformation, and Disaster w/Kate Starbird

Today is a discussion of DISINFORMATION IN THE PANDEMIC with returning COVIDCalls guest Kate Starbird.

Kate Starbird is an Associate Professor at the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) at the University of Washington (UW). Kate’s research is situated within human-computer interaction and the emerging field of crisis informatics—the study of the how social media and other information-communication technologies are used during crisis events. Currently, her work focuses on the production and spread of online rumors, misinformation, and disinformation in the context of crisis events. Starbird is a co-founder of the UW Center for an Informed Public.

EP #462 - 3.10.2022 - Ukraine and COVID w/Maxym Prytula

Today I welcome Maxym Prytula to discuss COVID in Ukraine.  Maxym Prytula is a peridontist and oral surgeon in Ukraine where he is also working towards a PhD in public health administration.  He has been treating COVID patients and soldiers, and we talk to him today.