Infectious Historians

Tim Newfield (Georgetown University) talks to Merle and Lee about the connected histories of climate change and diseases that become pandemics, focusing on the early medieval and late antique periods. Tim opens by discussing the global cooling events starting in 536 and how researchers know they happened through various proxy datasets, such as tree rings, along with how historians should approach...

Todd Platts (Piedmont Virginia Community College) joins Merle and Lee to discuss his work on zombie films over the past half century. He begins by offering a history of zombie movies and the changing features and definition of the zombie. Todd points to a few key films - in particular George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead which eventually resulted in the explosion of zombie...

Ben Trump (US Army) joins the Infectious Historians for a wide-ranging conversation. He begins with his public health work before Covid and his path to the US Army. Ben then outlines the Covid pandemic through his experience of working on several related projects, already since January/February 2020. Some of these included how Covid might spread in the US’ Pacific islands to figure out the respons...

Miri Shefer Mossensohn sits down with Merle and Lee to talk about Ottoman history of medicines and disease. She begins by discussing the broad contours of medicine and disease in the Ottoman Empire, which lasted for 600 years. Miri reveals the wide variety of medical individuals and institutions that existed in the Ottoman world, with few standardized systems until the 19th century, that meant peo...

Tzafrir Barzilay (Ben Gurion University of the Negev) joins Merle and Lee to discuss persecution of minorities and in particular Jews before and during the Black Death. After some background on the Black Death, Tzafrir uses the case study of Strasbourg to demonstrate how persecutions of minorities could be deeply embedded in local politics. The conversation touches upon some of the practicalities...

Emily Webster (University of Chicago) joins Merle and Lee to discuss the significant plague outbreaks in Bombay during the Third Plague Pandemic of the turn of the 20th century and the place of environmental history in studying disease. After first surveying the Pandemic and its particular impact in Bombay, Emily discusses why the experience of Bombay was central to how plague was conceptualized a...

Daniel Curtis (Erasmus University Rotterdam) talks to Merle and Lee about his diverse work that touches upon multiple disease-related fields. After an overview of the timeframe in which Daniel works - the late medieval and early modern periods, the conversation moves to a discussion of scholarly collaboration in the humanities. Daniel then discusses the benefits and challenges in quantitative work...

Audra Wolfe talks to Merle and Lee about her work on scientific freedom during the Cold War and how it still shapes ideas about objectivity and politics in science to the present. After framing the discussion about the Cold War, Audra explains the notion of scientific freedom that supposedly allowed scientists to develop their own research agenda without state interference, which was created in op...

Zachary Dorner (University of Maryland) comes on to discuss his new book, Merchants of Medicine , which discusses the role of merchants, commerce, and capitalism in changing how medicine was made, administered, and thought about across the 18th century. Zack discusses the ideas about medicine before the 18th century and then highlights the dramatic changes in commerce and capitalism that shaped ho...

Janet Kay (Princeton) returns to the Infectious Historians to discuss her promised after action report on teaching her 100 person course, The Art & Archaeology of Plague , at Princeton University. After reminding listeners about the structure of the course, Janet discusses two key features: plague simulations and the guest lecturers from around the world (including using an episode of the Infe...

Robin Scheffler (MIT) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss his recent book on cancer. Robin begins the interview with a broad discussion of cancer and the different ways it was perceived and conceptualized over the past century. The discussion touches upon topics such as the so-called “war” on cancer and its meaning; cancer and gender; some of the trends and individuals involved in cancer re...

Abigail Dumes (University of Michigan) sits down to talk to Merle and Lee about her anthropological work on Lyme Disease and how it has shaped ideas about long term disease effects on people. After defining Lyme Disease and why its numbers have increased over the last few decades, she turns to the debate over clinical diagnosis of the disease and those who have experienced long term symptoms. Dume...

Matheus Duarte (University of St. Andrews) comes on the podcast to talk to Merle and Lee about his work on turn of the 20th century plague in Brazil and its impact on creating the field of microbiology. After a brief introduction to disease history in Brazil at the time, Matheus discusses the impact and immediate non-medical responses to the plague outbreak in Brazil and their implications for glo...

Scott Gabriel Knowles (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) joins Merle and Lee to talk about his daily show since March 2020, Covid Calls. Scott begins by providing background to his show, the guests he has had on, and his audience’s responses to the show. He then discusses some of the broad themes he has learned during his 269 shows (as of our taping), including the importance of...

Meg Leja (SUNY Binghamton) joins Merle and Lee to discuss her work on early medieval medicine and the Carolingians. Meg begins the conversation by situating the Carolingians historically and explaining why they have been written out of the “standard” story of history of medicine. She continues by discussing how the Carolingians thought about health and medicine, while also pointing out some of the...

Jim Webb (Colby College) comes on the podcast to talk to Merle and Lee about his work in historical epidemiology and how its multidisciplinary approach could transform how we teach and research diseases. After first defining what historical epidemiology is and why it is a difficult field in which to do research, Jim gives examples of how he approached these questions based on his malaria research...

Svenn-Erik Mamelund (OsloMet) joins Merle and Lee to discuss his work. The first part of the interview focuses on Svenn-Erik’s research as a historical demographer focusing on the 1918 influenza pandemic, and he shares some of the findings about the differential effects of the pandemic on certain groups in the population. In the second half, the conversation moves to discuss Svenn-Erik’s experienc...

Dora Vargha (University of Exeter) talks to Merle and Lee about her work on polio epidemics after World War Two in Hungary. After unpacking the basic information on polio’s longer history, Dora discusses how polio struck Hungary during the 1950s and the way in which vaccines were introduced that stopped the epidemics by the 1960s. She uses polio as a lens to reveal some of the shifting gaps in the...

Michael Vann (California State University, Sacramento) returns to the Infectious Historians (our first returning guest!), this time to focus on the biography of Alexandre Yersin, the Swiss-French doctor who discovered the bacterium that causes plague. The discussion covers Yersin’s biography from childhood, through his move to southeast Asia, his successful career and larger-than-life reputation -...

Nathan Crowe (U. of North Carolina-Wilmington) comes on the podcast to talk about the life and career of Joshua Lederberg, a key figure in various fields including biology, genetics, and disease from just after World War Two until his death in 2008. Nathan first sketches out Lederberg’s background and his early career, including his work that received a Nobel Prize in 1958 when he was in his mid-3...

Merle and Lee celebrate a full year of Infectious Historians (52 episodes)! They reflect on the past year and the podcast, after re-listening to their not-so-bad first episode. They then survey the broad topics that the podcast covered so far - such as local experiences or disease in popular culture - mentioning some of the guests they interviewed along the way. The conversation then moves on to h...

Urmi Engineer Willoughby (Pitzer College) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss Yellow Fever, with a focus on New Orleans over the course of the 19th century. Urmi first talks about the biological, the environmental, and human factors that shaped the spread of Yellow Fever from Africa to the Americas across the last few centuries. She then moves on to discuss its particular importance in the...

Jessica Wright (University of Sheffield) joins the Infectious Historians team to discuss ancient medicine. The conversation begins with a definition of ancient medicine (and a reflection upon its meaning), as well as considering how ancient practitioners conceived of infectious diseases and infection. The discussion then moves to Christian heresies, which Jessica explains and connects to her own w...

John Mulhall (Harvard University) joins the Infectious Historians to talk about the famous medieval translation movement and his own work on late antique texts. John first talks about what the translation movement was (and was not) along with how it worked and why it is so central to histories of medicine, science, and philosophy. In the second part of the episode, John turns to his own work on la...

Khary Polk (Amherst College) joins the Infectious Historians to talk about his recent book on African-American workers in the US military, particularly in the context of their perceived immunity to certain infectious diseases such as Yellow Fever. The conversation touches upon several related topics, such as patriotism and gender roles in the military. Khary also describes how racial thinking shif...