Episode 115 – Medieval Music and Disease with Karen Cook
Karen Cook (University of Hartford) joins the podcast and speaks about her work on medieval music and potential connections to disease and epidemics.
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Ana Duggan (McMaster) and Tim Newfield (Georgetown) come on the podcast to speak about smallpox and some of their research on this historical disease.
Karen Cook (University of Hartford) joins the podcast and speaks about her work on medieval music and potential connections to disease and epidemics.
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.
Tylor Brand (Trinity College Dublin) joins Merle and Lee to discuss his recent book on Famine in Lebanon during World War I.
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.
Alexandre White (Johns Hopkins University) comes on the podcast to discuss his recent book on Epidemic Orientalism.
Kristina Sessa (Ohio State University) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss her recent work on late antique disasters – including diseases – within the broader context of premodern environmental history.
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).
Tom Ewing (Virginia Tech) comes on the podcast to discuss his work on the Russian Flu.
Joshua Teplitsky (University of Pennsylvania) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss his work on Jews and the Plague in Early Modern Europe.
Pablo Gomez (University of Wisconsin, Madison) discusses his work on health, knowledge and science in the 17th century Caribbean.
Troels Arboll (University of Copenhagen) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss his work on disease and healing in ancient Mesopotamia.
Troels Arboll (University of Copenhagen) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss his work on disease and healing in ancient Mesopotamia.
Jeffrey Reznick (The National Library of Medicine) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss his work as Chief of the History of Medicine Division at the National Library of Medicine.
Elena Conis joins the Infectious Historians to discuss her recent book on the history of DDT and its use.
Alex Otieno (Arcadia University) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss HIV-AIDS, focusing on the pandemic in Kenya.
Merle and Lee reflect on the podcast’s past, present and future, Covid and teaching.
Helen Rhee (Westmont College) joins Merle and Lee to talk about her recent book on illness, pain and healthcare in the ancient world and early Christianity.
Paula Larsson (University of Oxford) joins Merle and Lee to discuss her work on vaccinations and anti-vaccination movements.
Jim Downs (Gettysburg College) discusses his recent book on how empire transformed medicine with Merle and Lee
Sara Carr (Northeastern University) joins Merle and Lee to talk about her work on redesigning urban space in response to a pandemic.
Maria Spyrou (University of Tübingen) and Phil Slavin (University of Stirling) join the Infectious Historians to discuss their recent important article on the source of the Black Death, as well as interdisciplinary work.
Anjuli Raza Kolb (University of Toronto) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss her recent book on the history behind the metaphor of the “terrorism epidemic”.
Adam Izdebski (Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History) joins Merle and Lee to discuss his work bridging the science/history gap by examining ancient pollen.
Suman Seth talks about the practice of medicine in the British colonies during the 18th century.
Jennifer Hughes joins the Infectious Historians to discuss her work on church and society in 16th century Mexico within the Spanish Empire while focusing on reactions to infectious disease.
Claas Kirchhelle (University College Dublin) and Samantha Vanderslott (Oxford University) discuss the development and history of public health laboratories and their use during Covid.
Merle and Lee meet in person for the first time in two and a half years, and reflect on Covid, the podcast over the past year and its future directions.
Rhona Seidelman (Oklahoma University) discusses the quarantine of immigrants arriving in Israel at the foundation of the state.
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.
Colin Elliot (Indiana University) discusses the Antonine Plague and the complicated history of trying to understand its impact during antiquity.
Keith Wailoo (Princeton University) joins the podcast to talk about his work on the role race and racialization play in the unfolding of pandemics.
Ben Dodds (Florida State University) joins the podcast to talk about his new book about memories, myths, and the modern uses of the Black Death.
Kaspar Staub (University of Zurich) joins the podcast to talk about his historical epidemiology work and how it provides helpful context for the ongoing Covid pandemic.
Rebecca Kaplan (Oklahoma State University) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss her work on animals and disease, focusing on brucellosis.
Susanne Hakenbeck (University of Cambridge) talks about the role of archaeology in understanding disease, pandemics, and climate change in the ancient and medieval periods.
Graham Mooney (Johns Hopkins University) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss how space and place shape the impact of a disease alongside how these ideas shape public health responses.
Beatrix Hoffman (Northern Illinois University) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss the healthcare system in the United States and highlight the experience of immigrants in the country.
Emily Mendenhall (Georgetown University) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss Covid in her hometown in northwest Iowa.
Jules Skotnes-Brown (University of St. Andrews) joins the podcast to discuss his work on the interface between humans, animals and the environment, particularly in the context of South Africa at the turn of the 20th century.
Lisa Sarasohn (Oregon State University) joins Merle and Lee to discuss her work on vermin, their interactions with humanity, and how humanity has perceived them over the past few centuries.
Kirsten Ostherr (Rice University) joins Merle and Lee to discuss her translational humanities website – which gathers humanities projects that attempt to make a direct intervention during Covid.
Andrew Wehrman (Central Michigan University) discusses the role of smallpox and inoculations during the American Revolution.
Merle and Lee take a step back to reflect on disease studies based on their experiences in the past.
Tim Newfield (Georgetown University) discusses the connected histories of climate change and disease pandemics with a focus on the early middle ages.
Todd Platts (Piedmont Virginia Community College) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss some of his work on zombie films as a form of disease movies.
Ben Trump (US Army) joins Merle and Lee to discuss his job and its ties to Covid, policy and history.
Miri Shefer Mossensohn comes on the podcast to talk about her work on Ottoman histories of medicine and disease.
Tzafrir Barzilay (Ben Gurion University of the Negev) comes on the podcast to discuss his work on persecution of minorities before and during the Black Death, particularly through allegations of well poisoning.
Emily Webster (University of Chicago) talks about her work on plague outbreaks in Bombay at the turn of the 20th century and the importance of ecology to the study of disease.
Daniel Curtis (Erasmus University Rotterdam) joins Merle and Lee to discuss his diverse work on early modern pandemics, inequality, quantitative methodologies and movies.
Audra Wolfe discusses her work on scientific freedom and its impact on how we think about science from the Cold War to the present day.
Zachary Dorner (University of Maryland) joins Merle and Lee to discuss his work on the role of early modern commerce and capitalism in changing how medicine is administered and medical ideas about the body.
Janet Kay (Princeton) returns to the podcast for her promised reflections on teaching a course on plagues and pandemics during the Spring 2021 semester with lessons learned and ideas for the future.
Robin Scheffler (MIT) joins Merle and Lee to discuss his work on cancer, including the perception of cancer as an infectious disease.
Abigail Dumes (University of Michigan) comes on the podcast to talk about Lyme Disease and how it has shaped clinical diagnoses and debates over long term symptoms
Matheus Duarte (University of St. Andrews) sits down with Merle and Lee to discuss plague in Brazil at the turn of the 20th century, medical solutions to the outbreak, and the creation of microbiology.
Scott Gabriel Knowles comes on the podcast to discuss his daily show, Covid Calls, and what he has learned from talking to people from across the world since March 2020.
Meg Leja (SUNY Binghamton) joins the podcast to discuss her work on the history of medicine and disease during the Early Middle Ages.
Jim Webb (Colby College) comes on the podcast to talk about historical epidemiology and how it might transform the research on diseases in the past, present, and future.
Svenn-Erik Mamelund (OsloMet) comes on the podcast to talk about his research as a historical demographer, using one’s research to influence policy and conducting outreach.
Dora Vargha (University of Exeter) sits down to talk about the impact of post-World War Two polio epidemics in Hungary and how these epidemics shed light on the end of pandemics.
Michael Vann (California State University, Sacramento) returns to the Infectious Historians podcast, this time to discuss Alexandre Yersin’s life from a critical perspective.
Nathan Crowe (U. of North Carolina-Wilmington) discusses the career of the scientist Joshua Lederberg and his role as a public scientist and policy influencer across the second half of the 20th century.
Merle and Lee celebrate one year of Infectious Historians by reflecting on the past year, Covid, and the podcast.
Urmi Engineer Willoughby (Pitzer College) talks to Merle and Lee about her work on Yellow Fever outbreaks in New Orleans across the 19th century.
Jessica Wright (University of Sheffield) joins Merle and Lee to discuss her work linking ancient medicine and Christian heresy.
John Mulhall (Harvard University) discusses what the medieval translation movement was and his own work on how late ancient authors innovated in their medical knowledge about plague.
Khary Polk (Amherst College) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss his work about Black laborers in the US military and their perceived immunity to infectious diseases in the first half of the 20th century.
Richard McKay (University of Cambridge) discusses his work on the history of Patient Zero and the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Stephanie Marciniak (Penn State University) discusses her work studying historical diseases through their ancient DNA.
Janet Kay (Princeton University) discusses the planning, aims, and assignments for her course this semester (Spring 2021) “Art & Archaeology of Plague.”
Lukas Engelmann (University of Edinburgh) discusses his work on the history of epidemiology and epidemiological models with Merle and Lee.
Adia Benton (Northwestern University) discusses the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak and why Ebola, as a charismatic disease, has such a powerful hold over our imagination.
Chinmay Tumbe (Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad) discusses his new book, The Age of Pandemics, that focuses on the cholera, plague, and the 1918 Influenza pandemics in India.
Merle and Lee discuss a recent article that they wrote on the Justinianic Plague that has been published, and tie it to some of the discussions they’ve had on the podcast.
Guy Beiner (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) discusses how people and societies have forgotten and remembered the 1918 Influenza Pandemic over the last century.
John McNeill (Georgetown University) discusses the state of the field of environmental history including its development, what it looks like now, and where it might be going.
Susan Jones (University of Minnesota) discusses the key role of animals in the spread of diseases and the outbreak of epidemics, focusing on plague in Soviet Central Asia.
A.J. Herrmann (Director of Policy for Mayor Quinton Lucas of Kansas City, Missouri) talks about how he helped develop and implement Covid policies for Kansas City and the responses and difficulties in the city since March.
Katie Foss (Middle Tennessee State University) talks about her recent work on the role of the media in shaping how we think and remember epidemics in U.S. history.
David Pickel (Stanford University) discusses malaria in the ancient world with a focus on Roman Italy.
Mary Brazelton (University of Cambridge) comes on the podcast to discuss vaccinations in China during the 20th century.
Elliott Bowen (Nazarbayev University) discusses syphilis and sexual health in Hot Springs, Arkansas with Merle and Lee.
Jacob Steere-Williams (College of Charleston) talks to Lee and Merle about typhoid fever and the development of epidemiology as a field of study.
Tara Malanga (Rutgers University) joins Merle and Lee to discuss indigenous perceptions of disease in the context of post-Contact Mexico.
Elise Mitchell (NYU) talks about her work on smallpox vaccinations and forced inoculations for enslaved people in the Caribbean during the 17th and 18th centuries.
Jim Harris (Ohio State University) discusses the development of vaccinations and anti-vaccination sentiments since the 18th century.
Michael Vann (California State University, Sacramento) joins Merle and Lee to talk about the rat hunt following a plague outbreak in colonial Vietnam.
Mari Webel (University of Pittsburgh) talks to Merle and Lee about sleeping sickness and the impact of colonization in East Africa.
Merle and Lee discuss a few games that feature infectious diseases, focusing on Pandemic and Plague Inc.
Nancy Tomes (Stony Brook) discusses the development of Germ Theory and how its ideas spread through advertising and other popular media.
Priscilla Wald (Duke University) comes on the podcast to discuss the outbreak narrative, a common way through which we understand infectious diseases.
Merle and Lee discuss and debunk some of the historical myths about the effects of the Black Death on the medieval world.
Vincent Racaniello (University of Columbia) joins Merle and Lee to discuss developments in the field of virology over the past few decades.
Amir Afkhami (George Washington University) talks about modern cholera pandemics with a focus on their impact on Iran.
Jordan Pickett (U Georgia) comes on the podcast to discuss archaeology and potential signals of infectious diseases in archaeological finds.
Justin Stearns discusses medieval Islamic intellectual thought on plague and contagion.
Liat Kozma (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) discusses the development of medicine in the Middle East.
John Haldon (Princeton University) discusses the idea of resilience to systemic crises with a focus on the seventh-century Byzantine Empire.
Robert Alpert (Fordham and Hunter College) discusses how pandemics are depicted in film, and what might we learn about the past from these films.
Seth Archer (Utah State) discusses the various diseases that devastated Native Americans focusing on their impact in Hawaii.
Ida Milne (Carlow College) discusses the influenza pandemic of 1918, focusing on Ireland.
Guy Geltner and Janna Coomans join Merle and Lee to talk about what public health was like in medieval cities and why their work has important political implications for today.
Chris De Wet joins Merle and Lee to discuss his work on using discourse analysis to better understand late antique disease through the eyes of the people who experienced them.
Julia Simons talks to Merle and Lee about the evidence for tuberculosis and its effects around the Ancient World.
Christos Lynteris, a leading expert on the Third Plague Pandemic, discusses the Third Pandemic and its impacts during the 20th century.
Thomas Zimmer speaks with Merle and Lee about the emergence and development of global public health from World War Two to the present.
Merle and Lee discuss some of the methods and tools historians and other scholars use to study historical epidemics.
Fushcia Hoover sits down to talk to Merle and Lee about the connections between environmental justice and the impact of COVID-19 on a community level.
Michelle Smirnova, a sociologist (University of Missouri, Kansas City), joins Merle and Lee to discuss some of the present-day effects of COVID-19 in the US.
Merle and Lee talk to Phil Slavin about the evidence for the impact of the Black Death in Central Asia before it arrived more famously in Europe.
Abigail Agresta joins the podcast to discuss the most infamous pandemic in history – the Black Death.
Merle and Lee have their first guest, Alex Chase-Levenson, on the podcast to discuss historical quarantine and its relationship to social distancing in the present.
Merle and Lee discuss the late antique Justinianic Plague (c. 541-750), their current topic of research.
Merle and Lee discuss the most famous disease in human history, the plague, and give an overview of its impact.
An introductory episode in which Merle and Lee discuss the podcast and introduce themselves.
Further reading on each episode
Episode 114 – The 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic from a translocal and comparative perspective with John Eicher
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.
Episode 113 – Famine in Lebanon during World War I with Tylor Brand
Tylor Brand (Trinity College Dublin) joins Merle and Lee to discuss his recent book on Famine in Lebanon during World War I.
Episode 112 – The Third Plague Pandemic in Java with Maurits Meerwijk
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.
Episode 111 – Epidemic Orientalism with Alexandre White
Alexandre White (Johns Hopkins University) comes on the podcast to discuss his recent book on Epidemic Orientalism.
Episode 110 – Late Antique Disasters with Kristina Sessa
Kristina Sessa (Ohio State University) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss her recent work on late antique disasters - including diseases - within the broader context of premodern environmental history.
Episode 109 – Interdisciplinary Studies of Disease before 1000 (a recent conference Merle and Lee attended)
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).
Episode 108 – The Russian Flu with Tom Ewing
Tom Ewing (Virginia Tech) comes on the podcast to discuss his work on the Russian Flu.