Nathan Crow (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.
Michael Vann (California State University, Sacramento) returns to the Infectious Historians podcast, this time to discuss Alexandre Yersin’s life from a critical perspective.
Merle and Lee celebrate one year of Infectious Historians by reflecting on the past year, Covid, and the podcast.
Jessica Wright (University of Sheffield) joins Merle and Lee to discuss her work linking ancient medicine and Christian heresy.
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.
Stephanie Marciniak (Penn State University) discusses her work studying historical diseases through their ancient DNA.
Lukas Engelmann (University of Edinburgh) discusses his work on the history of epidemiology and epidemiological models with Merle and Lee.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Mary Brazelton (University of Cambridge) comes on the podcast to discuss vaccinations in China during the 20th century.
Jacob Steere-Williams (College of Charleston) talks to Lee and Merle about typhoid fever and the development of epidemiology as a field of study.
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.
Michael Vann (California State University, Sacramento) joins Merle and Lee to talk about the rat hunt following a plague outbreak in colonial Vietnam.
Merle and Lee discuss the late antique Justinianic Plague (c. 541-750), their current topic of research.
Priscilla Wald (Duke University) comes on the podcast to discuss the outbreak narrative, a common way through which we understand infectious diseases.
Vincent Racaniello (Columbia University) joins Merle and Lee to discuss developments in the field of virology over the past few decades.
Jordan Pickett (U Georgia) comes on the podcast to discuss archaeology and potential signals of infectious diseases in archaeological finds.
Liat Kozma (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) discusses the development of medicine in the Middle East.
Robert Alpert (Fordham and Hunter College) discusses how pandemics are depicted in film, and what might we learn about the past from these films.
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.
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.
Christos Lynteris, a leading expert on the Third Plague Pandemic, discusses the Third Pandemic and its impacts during the 20th century.
Merle and Lee discuss the late antique Justinianic Plague (c. 541-750), their current topic of research.
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.
The media visibility of COVID-19 mortality Lee Mordechai / April 13, 2020 The current pandemic, like other disasters, reveals much about the workings of different societies. Mortality – the most significant (and easily quantifiable) measure… Read More »COVID-19 mortality
Abigail Agresta joins the podcast to discuss the most infamous pandemic in history – the Black Death.
Merle and Lee discuss the late antique Justinianic Plague (c. 541-750), their current topic of research.
An introductory episode in which Merle and Lee discuss the podcast and introduce themselves.